


I Want to Hold Your Hand

by Lady_Viola_Delesseps



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Ellie is Joel's baby girl, Emotional Baggage, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Confusion, Unplanned Pregnancy, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-03-14 15:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 27,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3415547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Viola_Delesseps/pseuds/Lady_Viola_Delesseps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The girl's cells were exposed to the cordyceps in utero, causing her miraculous immunity. Repeating the experiment may lead to the cure for the human race... if her DNA does not die with her first."<br/>Joel and Ellie are living peacefully in Tommy's settlement until unguarded conversations spark out-of control events. This may be humanity's final big mistake... or their saving grace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She tried to count the seconds between the flashes on the horizon and the rumbles of thunder chasing each other toward the settlement, but something wasn't adding up. Every time, something just... The girl cursed under her breath.

"I wonder if one-one-thousand is better than one-Missisippi," she murmured. "One-Missisippi seems longer, for some reason."

A voice startled her from her musings.

"Ellie, who're you talkin' to?" She looked up to see Joel standing in the doorway, leaning his arm on the frame, a strange look on his face.

"Nobody. Myself." She swung her legs down from the windowseat, and faced him, bracing her hands backwards on her knees. "Is everything okay?"

Joel took in a deep breath through his nose, and ran a hand over his mouth, but didn't reply. The girl listed her head to one side.

"Sooo, everything's not okay?"

"Everything's fine," he returned. "Tommy and Maria and me were just talkin'."

"I know. I could hear you all the way up here."

Joel's brow furrowed. "Did you hear what we were sayin'?"

Ellie lifted her brows. "I could hear it, but I couldn't understand it. Why? Some... big secret something you don't want me to know about?"

Joel hesitated for a minute, before pulling out the chair that was facing the wall, and moving Ellie's backpack to the floor. The little monster regarded him balefully with its one mud-splattered eye until Joel nudged it over with the toe of his boot, and looked up to see Ellie fixing him with a stare. He took another deep breath.

"I know," Ellie began. "I know you think that I 'don't need to be worried' by all the stuff that you and Tommy are trying to figure out, and that's okay." She bobbed her head. "None of my business."

"Ellie –" Joel interjected, lifting a hand.

"It's not that, that's fine. I mean, I'm not a kid, and it's okay for you to tell me stuff, and I think it's really stupid to go pretending –"  
"Ellie –" Joel tried again, and she paused. "Just listen for a second, and you'd –"

"It's that I  _heard my name_ , Joel," she said, leaning forward, punctuating her words with an emphatic gesture. "I kept hearing my name – and so I know you're talking about me but you won't tell me." She subsided into the window and pulled her knees up to her chest, her voice dropping. "Which is fine, I guess, just getting old."

He leaned back. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you've been doing this always, haven't you? First with Tess, then with -"

"Ellie, what is goin' on with you? You know I've –" Joel broke off and shook his head. "I know I didn't start out real friendly with you, but that was a long time ago, and since then –"

"I just want to have a say, that's all," she murmured. "I'm tired of being talked about and passed around like some sort of..." She groped for the word, but stopped short, shaking her head. "Never mind. Just – never mind."

"It's been a long time since anybody's treated you as anything more than a person – a regular person."

"A  _kid_ ," she snorted. "I'm sixteen."

"Well, alright, but still. Tommy, me, Maria – we all have your best interests at heart."

"What are you, my royal advisers? My presidential cupboard, my – "

"Cabinet," Joel managed, suppressing a smile.

"Whatever." Ellie waved a hand. "Can I be on this decision-making committee? Since I'm the one we're talking about here, anyway?"

The ache that had long been threatening his well-being, beginning someplace behind his heart, came to once again and nudged Joel with the sense of how great his responsibility was toward this being, this valuable key to the future wrapped up in a little girl – young woman's – body. He had made the decision, he had lied to her to try and preserve a sense of normalcy – whatever that was – so that she could live like she should, and not be experimented on like a lab rat. He had fought this for a long time; the idea that what Tommy and Maria and he had been discussing was really only a different version of the same story. Without the driving-off-into-the-sunset ending.

"I'm not goin' to do this right now," Joel muttered, standing to his feet. He caught sight of the guitar propped in the corner and gestured to it. "Heard you earlier. You're getting' good. Keep workin' on that F chord –"

"My hands aren't big enough," she shrugged. "Can I come down and talk with Maria?"

"She's on duty." Joel crossed the room and grasped the guitar by its neck. "Come on then, show me what you're doin' with that third –"

"Joel." Ellie's eyes were wide, and the room grew silent except for the spitting of rain against the windowpane and the low hum of the generator across the power plant. "Why'd you come up here?"

Joel stood still for a moment, seeming to find the floor infinitely more interesting than Ellie's face. He replaced the guitar in the corner, hearing it thump with a quiet echo. He had nearly gotten out of this one.

"You're supposed to be talking about whatever it was you decided. And I'm supposed to be listening," Ellie explained, her uncanny perception giving Joel a slight shiver.

"You don't know that," he murmured.

"Wanna bet? Tommy and Maria sent you up here, 'cause you know me better than they do."

Joel felt his head nodding in spite of himself. "Alright. Yeah. But this ain't goin' to be something you want to hear, so don't be expectin' a surprise birthday party or nothin'."

Ellie snickered. "No party? Man."

Joel felt his heart rate speed up, and wondered why suddenly his pulse was hammering in his ears like when he was fighting the infected, when all he was doing was talking to Ellie about their plan. His subconscious berated him.  _All he was doing._..

"Right, so, you know what we talked about on our way back here?" Joel began, clearing his throat. Ellie nodded.

"Yeah. About the Fireflies, and the vaccination, and all that – " Ellie hesitated, and supplemented the gap with one of Joel's own choice words.

"Yeah. All that," he echoed her. "We're trying to make up for lost time. And I want to make it up to you for what I said."

"For  _lying,_ " she corrected.

"For lyin' to you." Joel looked her in the eye. "And we've gone over this. But the fact is..." He lowered his eyelids in a blink, and somehow, before the darkness, he seemed to see Ellie as the freckled kid he'd known as they traveled across the United States. After he opened them again, she was still there, but not as freckled. A little taller, more formed. He'd tried to ignore the things he'd noticed over the past year of life falling into a routine at Tommy's, but here they were, staring him in the face with a pair of big green eyes.

"You didn't deserve that. You deserve to make all your own choices, and not have people pick and choose what they think you should know."

Ellie let out a whistle. "Listen to you. Is this was Tommy wanted you to say?"

"No," Joel replied firmly. "Now, Ellie, you're maintainin' you're an adult and all, and I've seen you act like someone twice your age on more occasions that one. I hope this can be one of those times again, because what I have to say to you ain't goin' to be easy to hear."

Ellie nodded her head, brushing her hair from her eyes. "Alright. Go for it."

There was a long silence.

"So, you know you're immune."

Ellie stared at him. "Psh. Really? Thanks for telling me! I'd never have figured it out."

"Cute," Joel murmured. "So, there's no vaccine. We talked about that."

"Yup."

"I've struggled with what's the right thing to do, and I know I acted selfishly. I didn't want nothin' to happen to you, so that whole idea went down the drain. No vaccine, no more immunity. When you die, that'll be it."

"Smooth," Ellie added, nodding her head. "Real smooth."

"Can you be serious for once?" Joel burst out. "This ain't one of your jokes."

"'Kay." She thumped her heels against the wall beneath her. "I'm serious."

"What'd I say?"

"When I die, my immunity dies with me."

"Exactly." Joel fixed her with a stare. "So, you get it?"

Ellie looked at her lap for a long moment, and then looked up. "I get it. The world is going down the toilet because of what you did."

Joel sat in stunned silence for a few seconds. "Ellie, that's not it," he said at last.

"Well, it's true."

"Maybe. But there ain't no law anywhere that says anybody's blood has to die with them."

"What, you mean like donate it? I thought nobody did that anymore."

Joel shut his eyes. "I mean, Ellie, you can't die without havin' kids. If you have kids, your immunity would be passed on."


	2. Chapter 2

Ellie sat in shocked silence for a long moment, her mouth slightly agape. At last she recovered her powers of speech, and the first word she uttered made Joel wince. The second word she uttered was, "No."

"What do you mean 'no'?" Joel asked. "I didn't ask you a question, I just told you a fact."

"Well, my answer is no," she retorted, getting to her feet. "I can't get married. I don't want to have kids!"

"Now, Ellie, settle down," Joel said, standing, and lifting a hand in a calming gesture. "Nobody's askin' you to do a darn thing right now."

"Oh, yeah?" Her voice rose. "But in the future, what then?"

"You can't make a decision like that now, you don't know what might happen,. You're only sixteen."

" _Only_  sixteen?" She stared at him in disbelief. "I'm not hearing that right. There's no only. I'm sixteen. Six –  _whole_  – teen! And I can make a decision like that for myself!"

"I need you to lower your voice," Joel said in a measured tone. "I don't bet you want Tommy comin' up here askin' if everything's alright."

Ellie closed her mouth at this, and tossed herself prone onto the windowseat, clamping the single ancient pillow over her head, only to sit up in a coughing fit. Joel watched, resisting the urge to smile, and when she had finally gotten her breath again, after a drink of water from the amazing marvel of the running tap in the bathroom, he met her eyes.

"Alright?"

"Fine," she mumbled, her voice a little husky. "That's a heck of a thing to try and spring on someone, though."

The rain had intensified, filling the room with the sound of the droplets hitting the patched roof and sliding topsy-turvy over each other to cascade from the eaves into the collection barrels. Joel heaved a sigh.

"So. That's what we've been talkin' about."

"And it only just now crossed your mind to tell me?" Ellie could hardly believe her ears. She stared at the ceiling, and traced the pattern with her finger in the air, the parallel lines of a double crack that joined a corrugated patch. The one that she thought looked like how she imagined a teleportation device to look, like in Savage Starlight. Maria had given her some paper and encouraged her to write what she thought should happen in the next installment of the series, and she'd done her best. She didn't have many ideas for the story, but a lot of ideas for pictures, so the sequel was a bit hard to follow. Only Ellie really knew how it was supposed to go, and one time she had sat Joel down and explained all the drawings to him. Apparently she needed to work a little more on making her art stand on its own.

"It was a hard talk to have. Everyone had different opinions," Joel murmured, running a hand over his beard.

"Hm," Ellie responded, her voice far-away. "Which was yours?"

Joel sighed. "I told them we shouldn't make you do somethin' you don't want to."

"Heck, yeah."

"Tommy thinks I was an idiot to do what I did. Maria disagrees, and said that I was right, but that we have to think about the repercussions – the... consequences. And that I should talk to you about, you know – fixing it."

"Tell me this." Ellie swung her legs back down and squinted, hugging the derelict pillow to her stomach. "Why am I supposed to be fixing the consequences of your choice?"

Joel's brows drew together. "I saved your  _life_ , Ellie. Is it too much to ask that you work with me here?"

"What do you mean?" Her face seemed to lose a shade or two of color. Joel shut his eyes.

"I mean, of course, that you think about cooperatin'. Just for a little while, entertain the idea that this might work."

"How." She didn't phrase it like a question. Joel was unsure of what exactly she meant, and decided to err on the side of caution.

"I mean... cooperate. Realize this could work and let us –" he gestured helplessly. "Let us help you find someone you could like, and someday have a family with."

Ellie's face still bore traces of her earlier horror. "No," she murmured. "I'm sorry, Joel. I can't do that."

"Why not, baby girl?" Joel asked in a quiet voice, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. "Why not?"

She looked at the floor. "I don't really want to talk about it."

Joel inhaled. "I know that this... this is a mighty sensitive topic. And you probably never thought about it much."

Ellie let out a small laugh, but it was mirthless. "No kidding. It freaks me out."

"And I know that after... what that son of a –"

Ellie shook her head. "Don't. It's fine. I'm just... not crazy about the idea. One, I'm a kid. Two, it freaks me out. Three, I don't think I'll ever fall in love, and then there's no point. And four, I kinda just want to live life for a while and not worry about all this immunity business." She shrugged. "Selfish, I know."

"Yeah. You hear yourself?" Joel's voice was still pitched low, and Ellie had leaned forward, so that the room seemed to shrink around them, and the whole world now consisted of the small patch of floor between their shoes on which both their eyes were focused, and the sounds of each others voices in their ears.

"You're thinkin' like I was, and like I still do. Selfish. Now, I'm not askin' you to do something that I couldn't, that ain't fair. I'm only askin' that you try. You better try to be a better person than I am, or the whole world's goin' to be pretty screwed up. 'Cause I've messed up big time."

"Like when?"

"Lots," Joel replied simply. "So, think about it." He got to his feet, and put a hand on Ellie's head for a brief moment. "We all care about you, here."

"I know." Her voice was small. "Thanks."

Joel knew he should leave about now, but somehow his feet didn't budge. He stood there for a long moment, and finally asked, "What're you thinkin'?"

His patience did not go unrewarded.

"So, say I decide to do what you want." Ellie looked up. "Say this is all going to work, and we decide, oh, in ten or twenty years, yeah, I'll fall in love."

"Ten or twenty years? Kid, you gotta make a decision before then, or I'll be long gone. I want to see this, and I ain't as young as I look."

"Okay, fine, so ten or fifteen." Ellie held out her hands. "I'm doing the best I can."

Joel nodded. "Alright. So?"

"So..." Ellie pursed her lips. "What if I fall in love with a girl?"

Joel did his best not to let his face reflect his thoughts. "Honey," he sat back down. "You're a smart kid, and I ain't goin' to go into detail, but if the point in this is to pass on your immunity, I'll bet you can work the answer to that one out."

"But what if I do? I can't just marry somebody I don't like, right? I mean like Maria and Tommy." Ellie waved a hand. "They fell in love, so they got married. It has to go in that order, doesn't it?"

"It doesn't have to," Joel began, but seeing her face, decided to stop there. "But for you I wouldn't want it to be in any other order."

Ellie shook her head. "Why can't the world be simpler..." she groaned, pulling her hairtie from her hair and intertwining her fingers close to her scalp in a classic gesture of agony.

"Believe me, I wonder the same thing," Joel murmured in sympathy.

"You going to tell Tommy what I said?"

Joel hesitated. "He's goin' to ask."

"I know."

"What should I tell him?"

Ellie looked up. "Tell him I'm going to try not to be selfish."


	3. Chapter 3

Maria was sound asleep when a noise jerked her from the world of dreaming and left her blinking in the dark. She had returned from duty late, and fallen asleep almost immediately. The only sounds that she could hear were the noises of Tommy's snoring, the ever-present ambiance of the generator, and the distant rush of the river. The rain had stopped, and she closed her burning eyes, preparatory to return to her slumbers when she heard it again – a light knocking on the door.

She sat up, fingering her pale hair behind her ears, and clicked on her flashlight, shielding its glow with her hand, and making her way to the door. Tommy's snores continued uninterrupted, and she pulled it open to reveal Ellie, her hair mussed, peeping from the shadows.

"Everything alright, Ellie?" Maria asked, looking over the girl's shoulder with her light, and seeing Joel slumbering, his back to them, on the sofa.

"Yeah, sorry to bother you." Ellie looked at her feet for a moment. "I'd like to talk to you, if that's okay."

"Sure, hold on just a second." Maria used her shielded light to locate her boots, and slipped them on, returning to the door, and beckoning Ellie to follow her. "Let's go out onto the porch, so we don't bother the guys."

Ellie followed the woman silently, and once they were outside, the fresh air of the rain-washed night surrounding them, they sat on the edge of the ragged wooden platform, and she inhaled a deep breath.

"Smells amazing," Ellie commented. "Like all the dirt and horrible stuff is gone for a while."

"Right you are." Maria leaned back against a support, and crossed her arms against the slight chill. "So, what's bothering you, sweetie?"

"Nothing, I just... thinking." Ellie shrugged, swinging her legs, her feet bare. She liked Maria, but didn't always know how to show it. She liked it when Maria called her 'sweetie'. She liked it when she'd hug Ellie, give her secret looks in the middle of a conversation with 'the guys' and the way she cooked amazing food and let Ellie have seconds as many times as she wanted. She took a deep breath. "Joel came and talked to me, and... I reacted like a total jerk."

Maria looked curious. "Really. That wasn't the way he told it."

"What did he tell you?" Ellie braced her hands on either side of her, and shifted, regarding Maria in the dim light from the yellow lamp in the middle of the compound.

"He said he'd told you what we'd been discussing, and you were a little resistant at first, but took it pretty well, all things considered."

Ellie raised her eyebrows. "Hm. Well, that's not how I'd have put it."

"How would you have put it?" Maria's eyes were smiling.

"More like, Joel tried to talk but I wouldn't let him, and when I finally let him, I freaked out and acted like a total idiot, and he was really nice, but I still gave him a heck of a time because it was hard for me to hear." She nodded. "That's what I would have said."

Maria grinned. "That's okay, and I don't really see a contradiction between the two." She sobered just a little. "So, it freaked you out?"

Ellie nodded. "Yeah," she breathed. "A lot. I don't want to have kids."

"Why not?"

"Well, you kind of have to have kids with someone else, right? And there isn't anyone I like enough for that."

Maria put her arm around the girl, and gave her a brief hug. "Mhm. It's a scary subject. You're not the only one, and both you and Joel are brave to have had the conversation anyway."

Ellie nestled into Maria, feeling her hair rumple comfortably against her shoulder. "Sooo... you and Tommy. Do you want to have kids?"

Maria was quiet for a moment, running her fingers up and down the sensitive skin on the back of Ellie's sleeve-clad arm, making her shiver happily, and squirm in closer. Maria smiled down at the top of the girl's head, and replied:

"We do. Well, we did."

"What do you mean?" Ellie tilted her face up and looked at Maria. Her gaze was fixed someplace ahead of her, her voice low.

"We can't. I can't."

"Why not?" Ellie pulled away, and crossed her legs. "I mean, it just never works?"

"I had an injury when I was about your age. Deep wound to the stomach – my father had to keep the bandits away from the plant by himself until I healed. It was almost two months before I was back on my feet again. It made sense then, that I'd never be able to have children, but I didn't give it much thought. Tommy and I have tried." She chuckled. "Believe me, we've tried, but apparently it's not meant to be."

Ellie looked at her lap. "Oh. Sorry."

"It's alright. You know, that's one of the reasons I'm glad you came back. Sometimes," she leaned in confidentially, "Sometimes in my head I pretend like you're my little sister. Or my daughter."

Ellie bobbed her head. "Glad that it makes you happy. Hope I'm a good little sister. Or daughter."

Maria smiled. "So, any other thoughts?"

"I don't know." Ellie flopped back and tipped her face skywards, making a disgruntled noise. "I don't know, but I don't feel like Joel wouldn't understand. I don't feel like you'd really understand either, but at least you're a girl."

Maria nodded. "Noted." She lay back by Ellie's side and they remained thus in silence for a long while. At last Ellie spoke again.

"Maria – how did you know you were in love with Tommy? I mean, how did you figure it out and when, and what did you do?"

"Ellie..." Maria took a deep breath. "I think I should tell you that things never happen the same way twice. Whatever I tell you is only what happened to me. My experience."

"But I have no experience," Ellie retorted. "Or... basically no experience." She bit her lip.

"You want to talk about it?" Maria turned her face toward the girl. There was a long pause.

"I don't know if I've been in love before," Ellie began, taking a deep breath. "There was someone – someone that I liked so much that it hurt when I wasn't around them, someone I wanted to be with so much because they made me happy, and because I liked to think I made them happy. But I don't know if that was love."

Maria's gaze was fixed on Ellie's face as she talked; she had her eyes squeezed shut, as if thinking very hard about what she wanted to say.

"Sometimes I would imagine that we could be together forever. If she was around, I didn't have to worry about anything else, and when she wasn't, it was like everything got... all horrible, or something..." Ellie trailed off, covering her face with her arm. "Ahh, I don't even know what I'm talking about."

"Was this a best friend?" Maria asked in a quiet voice. "This girl, was she your friend?"

"Yeah." Ellie's voice was muffled by her sleeve. "I totally miss her."

Maria lay in silence next to her for a long moment, until Ellie pulled her arm from her face, and rolled over, her back to Maria. The woman sat up, pulling her legs beneath her and put a gentle hand on Ellie's shoulder, and felt the girl lean back into her knees.

"Ellie," she said at last, her voice quiet. "Don't write that off as nothing. It doesn't sound like you have no experience with love."

"That wasn't what I meant," Ellie murmured, after a beat. "That's one thing. But I just freak out when I think about –" She broke off and shivered, hugging her arms around herself and curling into a smaller ball. "This guy, he tried to – one time, a long time ago, there was this guy..." She stopped short, her mind fogging up. She had tried so hard to forget this, the flames, his weight pressing her into the floor, his breath on her face...

"It's okay, sweetie," she heard Maria say, as if from far away. "It's okay, just take a deep breath." Ellie hadn't even realized she was crying until she tasted the tepid salt of the tears trickling down her cheeks.

"I – he didn't make me too excited about that kind of thing," she choked at last, and felt herself being pulled into an embrace by Maria, even though she felt powerless to return it. Ellie held her breath until the urges to gasp and sob went away, and then she pulled back, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "I don't want to fall in love. I never want to get married to a guy, I don't want to have kids..." Her voice was rising in pitch, and she could feel Maria take both of her hands in hers.

"Listen to me, Ellie. No one is going to make you do something you don't want to do. You have to do what you think is right."

"But that's being selfish," she sniffled. "And I don't want to be selfish."

"There's a fine line between denying yourself to do what's best, and making yourself pointlessly miserable. Can I ask you something?"

Ellie nodded.

"Have you ever liked a boy? A guy, at all?"

Ellie hesitated, and then shrugged. "Sure. Sam was my friend."

"No, I mean, like love. Like a crush."

Ellie took a deep breath. "Look, I don't know. I – I don't think so. But I'm just a kid."

"You're a young woman, Ellie. It's not easy, but I happen to know that you're one of the strongest young ladies out there. So I know that you can figure this out."

"You think so?" Ellie's pupils were enormous in the dim lamplight.

Maria simply kissed her on the forehead, and felt Ellie lean into the kiss, her eyes falling closed as she heaved a giant sigh.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Some time passed, before the topic arose again. Winter had come, and Ellie's thoughts on the subject of love, procreation, and of men in general were not usually improved by seeing the snow and the bleak memories of the season which had proved to be the hardest for her.

Joel and Ellie had volunteered to venture into the forest to check the thickness of the ice that was narrowing the river a few miles downstream of the plant. The workers had been detecting a steady decrease in power owing to the river's abated pace, to the extent that they had been turning off all the lights except those absolutely necessary, in effort to direct the remaining power to the heating systems. Joel had loaded up his axe, a measuring rod, and a sledgehammer, and Ellie had pulled on her boots and flannel, asking if she could accompany him.

"Why, you getting' cabin fever?" Joel asked, cinching the girth on his horse's saddle, and testing it with one foot in the stirrup. He grunted and tugged it one notch tighter as the horse shifted restlessly. "Gettin' skinny," he muttered, giving the beast an apologetic pat.

"Something like that," Ellie shrugged, handing him the bridle. Joel slipped it over the horse's nose, and it champed distastefully at the cold bit.

"Yeah, me too," he murmured. "Get your gear, you can ride with me."

"Thanks, but I'll ride by myself."

Joel cocked a brow. "Alright."

Ellie shouldered her backpack which had been reposing in the angle of the improvised stall, and set to tacking up her mount, requiring a bit of help hefting the saddle up above her head.

"Here." Joel grabbed it and settled it on the horse's back, sliding it back ever so slightly, and passing the straps beneath to Ellie, who began to fumble with the cinch.

"Thanks," she mumbled, cursing under her breath. "Stupid buckle."

"Hey." Joel ducked beneath the bay's neck and stood face to face with her. "Somethin' the matter?"

"No," she said, giving the cinch a vicious yank, blinking back the sting of tears in her eyes. This blasted cold weather. Making her eyes water. She left the cinch to dangle, and turned away to wipe her face on her sleeve, catching the warm horsey smell in her clothing, and taking in a deep breath of it. Joel fastened the girth in silence, and then straightened, shifting from one foot to the other and regarding the back of Ellie's ponytail with concern.

"Ellie, whatever's goin' on, if it's about what Tommy and me said –"

"It's not," she blurted, turning around. "It's – not..."

"Then what is it?" Joel asked, infinitely gentle. Ellie took a deep breath.

"Okay, it is," she said at last, pushing her hands deep into the pockets of her flannel. "But it's not what you think."

"I don't think nothin'," Joel said, grabbing the other bridle from its nail and warming the jointed bit in his hands. "Just been wonderin' when this was goin' to come back up, or if you'd forgot."

"I didn't forget." Ellie chuckled dryly. "It's been like, all I can think about. And I hate it." She aimed a kick at a chunk of dried manure. "I want to be able to just live life and not be worrying about what I'm gonna do. About what's wrong with me."

"What do you mean?" Joel reached over the bay's neck and buckled the strap along its jaw.

"Well, there's got to be something wrong with me, or else I wouldn't be having such a hard time with this," Ellie pointed out, as if the conclusion was obvious. "Other people can just  _do_  stuff, and it's not this much of a pain."

"First of all, let's set this straight." Joel passed her the bridle, and moved to untie his own horse. "Nobody just  _does_  stuff in life, and it's easy. It might look like that to other people, but it ain't easy, I promise."

"So, I just need to get good at pretending it's not a problem," Ellie commented, following Joel into the bright winter sunlight. He swung into the saddle, and Ellie did the same. "Or at least until I figure out what I'm going to do."

Joel kicked his horse into a canter, and they did not speak for a few minutes as they crossed the compound, waited for the gate to be opened, and then descended the gentle slope to the treeline. Ellie caught up to Joel there.

"You ever think that you might not have to  _do_  anything?" he said at last. Ellie snorted.

"What do you mean? Of course I have to do something. This isn't going to just happen on its own."

"Well, I know that," Joel drawled, "But you're getting' all hot and bothered over the fact that you don't like someone. You can't do somethin' about that, except just wait for it to happen."

"I don't know if I believe in that," Ellie said, shifting in the saddle, and grasping the bridle in one hand, putting the other in her armpit to warm it, then switching.

"Yeah? I don't believe in it neither. But it happens."

They were quiet for a long time, and at last Ellie broke the silence. They had reached a spot with particularly thick ice built up along the bank, and Joel dismounted with a grunt, draping the reins over a tree branch, and leaving his horse to paw through the snow in search of grass beneath.

"Come'ere, Ellie," he said, beckoning the girl to follow him, and making his way down the mud-striped embankment toward the river's edge, encrusted in ice. Ellie did as she was told, and slid down the last few feet to bump to a stop against Joel.

"Whoah, there," he chuckled. "Got your feet?"

"Yeah," she said, squatting, and rapping on the ice with her knuckles, wincing, and sticking her hand in her mouth. "Geez," she said, around her fingers. "That's thick."

Joel pulled out his rod and made a mark with his knife in the notched wood. "We're gonna break it."

"Really? All of it?"

"As much as we can. Other guys can come back out in shifts, and it'll be all broken up soon enough."

"Won't it just freeze again?" Ellie asked, straightening up and tightening her ponytail.

"Yeah. But it'll take a couple of months to get this thick again. And meanwhile we'll have more power."

"Got it."

Ellie watched as Joel unshouldered his backpack, and released the axe and sledgehammer from where they had been strapped to the sides. He handed the girl the hammer with a warning. "Don't do nothin' til I tell you."

"I won't," she replied, giving the heavy implement a wobbly practice swing, to Joel's obvious disapproval.

"You listenin' to me?"

"Uh-huh." Ellie set the hammer's head on the ice, and leaned on the shaft, her chin on her hands, watching as Joel marked the ice with easy chips from his axe.

"So, this ice. How'd you think it got here?" he asked, bringing down the metal blade with a grunt.

"Well, the river," Ellie said, looking at him as if he had lost his sanity. "The water froze."

"How'd it freeze if it's moving?"

"Well, it didn't all freeze. It's taken since November, and just a little bit freezes. Little layers freeze as the water runs by, and it eventually just built up like this." She crossed her arms, as Joel brought down the axe again. "What are you doing?"

"Choppin' ice, Ellie," Joel replied.

"No, I mean with all these questions."

Joel took a deep breath, and set aside the axe, meeting her eye. "The river didn't stop what it was doin' to get this ice here. It just kept goin', and over time, the ice happened because the air was cold. So you don't have to stop livin' in order to decide what you're gonna do about this. Just keep doin' what you're doin', and when the air is right, ice'll form."

Ellie wanted to make a jibe about how teach-y Joel had gotten, but found she didn't think it would be really appropriate. And... he was – not exactly right, but on a pretty correct path, if you thought about it enough. In fact –

"Okay," she admitted. "That's a good way to think of it."

"Tommy said there's a survivor group from Oklahoma travelin' this way. Their settlement was hit by a tornado." Joel chuckled, and shouldered the axe again. "The last group of bandits comin' through here had attacked 'em, and one of the scouts told 'em apparently if they could get here, they'd be safe." Joel brought the axe down again, burying it deep into the ice, and prying it out with some effort. "Now, Tommy ain't crazy about the idea of people bringin' the infection here, but we can't turn 'em away if they seem to be fine. Maria had the idea to keep 'em in quarantine for a couple a weeks before we let 'em past the dam."

"Cool." Ellie handed Joel the sledgehammer when he reached for it, and he brought it down on the ice, sending cracks splintering out from the area of impact.

"So." Joel hacked the ice again. "Some new people to meet, maybe. Somebody your age..."

"Whoah, whoah, whoah." Ellie shook her head. "Hold on. They're going to  _live_  here?"

"This wasn't my idea, Tommy says that we don't have enough people here to hold off the bigger groups of bandits. Plus, we got plenty of room, no infected, and they need a place to stay. Can't see the problem in it."

"Unless you all are setting me up."

"Ellie." Joel chuckled, straightening and handing her the hammer once again. "I know this is on your mind an awful lot, but it ain't necessarily on ours."

"Well, that's good," she murmured. "This is getting weird."

"Only if you make it weird. Alright, this is compromised enough that a few hits should send it breakin' up and floatin' downstream. You want to help?"

Ellie nodded. "Sure."

"Alright, then, you listen to me. Hit it here first," Joel indicated with his boot, "and then here. Don't hit the same place more than once, or it'll break through and you'll fall in with it. We want to do this nice and gentle."

"-with a sledgehammer. Got it," Ellie grinned.

Joel pulled her ponytail. "Alright. Don't want you to hurt yourself, all you're goin' to do is put this up over your shoulder like this," he demonstrated with his axe, and Ellie hefted the hammer to her shoulder, "and then let the weight of the head bring it down. You don't have to swing it at all, you'll pull somethin' if you don't know what you're doin'."

"Alright." Ellie let out her breath. "Like this?"

"Feet apart." Joel nudged her sneaker with his boot. "There you go."

Ellie hauled the hammer away from her back and let it fall to the ice, and a small piece broke off, spinning downstream in the swift-running water.

"Whoo!" she cheered. "Look at that!"

"Alright, you know where next."

"Uh-huh." She hoisted the hammer into position and let it fall again, slightly away from her mark. She swore under her breath. "Lemme try again."

The following blow sent a deep crack running right between her feet, and Ellie stepped away cautiously.

"Good girl. Now hit it again."

From the safety of the bank Ellie wielded the hammer until most of the ice was broken and the river ran as swiftly as before.


	5. Chapter 5

"Man, my arms," Ellie complained as they rode back. "They feel like they're going to fall off."

Joel chuckled. "Builds muscle, work like this."

"I thought I already had muscles. How can you even have muscles there?" She dropped the reins and guided the bay with her legs, feeling the backs of her arms gingerly with her hands. The sun was setting, and the plant's lights above the dam were beginning to flicker on one by one.

"Hey look. Lights." Ellie pointed. "I wonder how much the power is up by."

"I don't know. Ask Tommy."

"I sure hope Maria's made something for dinner..." Ellie sighed happily. "That would be amazing."

They handed their horses off to Earl, who was off-duty, and Joel asked, "Tommy around?"

"Him and Houser went home about half an hour ago," Earl returned over his shoulder.

"Good," Joel murmured. "They've been getting' up before the sun."

Ellie stretched stiffly, having not been in the saddle for some months, and winced at the tender pull of her ligaments and tendons. Then she caught sight of the greyish heap of fur in the shadow of the stables, and hurried over through the snow.

"Buckley," she crooned, scratching the dog behind the ears, and he wagged his tail appreciatively. "Having a good day?"

"Worthless, as ever," Earl chuckled, leading the horses by her. "He's been hiding out there all day, out of the wind."

"I don't blame him," Ellie proclaimed. "If I was a dog, I'd nap all the time. Either that or explore."

"Go on, then, Joel thinks you're following him," Earl chuckled, gesturing to the man whose long strides were already bearing him toward Tommy and Maria's house.

"He always thinks that," Ellie whispered to the dog, giving him a final pat. "Bye, buddy. See you soon." And she jogged to catch up with Joel, her muscles protesting every step of the way.

"Hey," she gasped, coming up to his side. "Thanks for letting me come with you."

"No problem. Thanks for your help, kiddo." Joel draped his arm around her, and Ellie felt herself stiffen.

"Uh." She grasped his wrist and gently extricated herself. "Not to offend you or anything, but I'm not really into hugging."

"Hm." Joel regarded her curiously. "That new?"

Ellie shook her head. "No. Just... a combination of things." She twisted her hands. "Okay. New-ish."

"I see."

They mounted the steps to the porch, and Ellie took them two at a time to reach the top before Joel, looking down at him.

"Ellie?"

"I kinda doubt you see." She bobbed her head. "But thanks anyway."

Maria was heard calling from within. "Joel? Ellie?"

"Yeah!" Ellie vociferated, catching a whiff of something hot and tasty. "Is that dinner? Oh, boy!" She sprinted inside, leaving Joel to scratch his head and follow her at a more staid pace. Complicated little thing.

That night, basking in the light of the lamps on the walls which remained illuminated long after ten o'clock, Tommy and Joel mumbling over their chess game, and Ellie with a roll of duct tape patching her backpack, Maria came and sat next to the girl.

"So, did you tell her?" she asked Tommy, who looked up.

"Check. Hm?" He lifted his eyebrows at his wife. Maria rolled her eyes.

"Ellie. Did you or Joel tell her about the other group coming?"

"I did," Joel replied, as simultaneously Tommy shook his head.

"What do you think?" Maria asked Ellie. "Some new people to meet?"

Something perverse in Ellie decided to play dumb. "Yeah. That'll be cool. Maybe I'll make a friend who likes comics too."

Tommy and Maria exchanged a look. Joel cleared his throat.

"Ellie, you know what Maria means."

"Really?" She raised her eyebrows. "I thought she just meant –"

"Leave the girl alone," Tommy chuckled, giving her a wink. "Maybe there'll be some comic-book-lovin' boy in the lot."

"You all are worse than Pride and Prejudice," Ellie muttered. Joel snorted. "You know!" she exclaimed. "All trying to get everybody to fall in love. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was an amazing book, but in real life it's really weird."

"Where'd you even get that book?" Joel asked. Maria smirked.

"I gave it to her. Smuggled from a trip through the library at the university when I was traveling with Dad. Kept it all these years, because I loved it. I thought I'd give it to Ellie."

"It was awesome..." Ellie groaned in appreciation. "Especially the part where Mr. Collins goes and marries that other girl! I was like, what the heck?" She fell back onto the floor in a fit of laughing. "Ohhh." Ellie wiped her eyes and sat up, resuming her work on her backpack. "So funny."

Maria regarded the girl fondly. "That your favorite part?"

"Totally." Ellie nodded enthusiastically. "Either that or the part where they find out that one guy was like totally into drinking and girls, and they all thought he was really good and stuff."

Joel was resisting the urge to smile, and not doing a very good job.

"Hey, what about that part where Mr. What's-'is-name finally asks the girl to marry him?" Tommy inquired. "That's the part Maria always talked about. Said it was so sweet and all that I got a hold of the book and tried to remember some of the words when I asked her to marry me." Joel snorted. "Hey." Tommy glared. "She accepted." He lifted his hands as if to proclaim his victory.

Ellie cocked her head. "Eh. It was okay. I liked it better when her friend was all like 'marriage is luck' and all that."

"Do you believe that?" Maria queried.

"Psh. No." Ellie bit off the tape and smoothed the end down with her fingers. She stopped short and looked around the quiet room to see all the adults regarding her with various expressions. "What? You guys got all weird." She pushed herself back against the sagging sofa and drew her knees up to her chest. "What are you staring at?"

"Nothing," Maria said, unfolding a stack of faded, water-crinkled paper. "I'm going to show you how to make an envelope."

"Whoah, cool, what is this?" Ellie exclaimed, peering at the faded paper. "It's an atlas. We might need this."

"Not unless we're ever lost in Oregon, and I'm pretty sure we'll get better use out of it this way," Maria smiled. Another hour passed in their quiet pastimes, and Maria was first to retire, leaving Ellie licking and tearing the folded paper. After Tommy had beaten Joel at last, amidst Joel's complaining that he took advantage of the fact that he had the first move as white, Tommy bade everyone goodnight and went to indulge in the luxury of a shower before bed. Joel stood to his feet.

"Arms doing alright?"

"So far," Ellie nodded, biting her lip as she squinted and examined a faulty envelope. She swore under her breath. "Not again."

"Go to bed soon, baby," he murmured, bestowing a kiss on top of her head. "And don't let any of this stuff bug you."

Ellie didn't look up, but said softly, "Then why did you tell me in the first place?"

Joel crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the ground for a moment. "For your good."

"My what?" Ellie shut her eyes in exasperation. "I hate to admit how messed up this has made me."

"Mind if I tell you a story?" Joel said at length, taking a seat on the sofa. Ellie shook her head and Joel took a deep breath.

"Now, I haven't told this to anybody, and nobody knows about it firsthand except Tommy. So, you know about Sarah."

Ellie pivoted on the floor so she could see Joel's face and Joel couldn't help but wish she hadn't done that. Now he was stuck – if he decided to back out, she would read him like an open book.

"Yeah. Maria told me about her."

"Alright. So, she was about your age. Well, about the age you were when I first met you." He didn't need to say when. What had happened when she was Ellie's age. "She was really in to weird music, weird movies, weird clothes..." He chuckled. "She was a weird kid. Kinda like you." Ellie nodded.

"I'll bet I would have liked her."

"Yeah. So, I had her when I wasn't much older'n you are right now. Her mother – her mother was a real pretty thing. And I was young and stupid, and she wasn't much better, but I loved her. We met in school. It was a rough year for me and Tommy, our dad had shot himself over the summer, Mother wasn't doin' so well herself. She never was a real strong person, physically, that is. I had to get another job to help pay for the rent, and through it all, there was this new girl from some school in the far northwest. Her hair was blonde, her eyes were blue, and she liked music."

Ellie was listening raptly, in her eyes the reflected light of the lanterns. Joel found it easier to look away as he talked.

"I brought my guitar to school one day, and played it during lunch, since we didn't have money, and I usually just ate somethin' when I got home. Everybody else'd eat, or listen for a while, but she came over and sat real close at my feet, like you are now," he gestured, "and listened the whole darn time. Didn't even eat lunch, and after I'd finished playin' she asked if I knew some song or another."

"What was it?" Ellie blurted out. Joel rubbed a hand over his beard.

"I don't remember."

"I bet you do."

There was a long pause. "It was called 'House of the Rising Sun'."

"How does it go?"

"Now, I ain't gonna sing it for you, the point is I knew it and I played it and she sang it for me. She sang real nice, she had a good voice. When we finished there wasn't nobody else in the whole room, and we figured we were goin' to be late for class. So we just skipped out for the rest of the day, and that's how it all started."

"How'd it all end?"

"Sarah." Joel took a deep breath. "Her family was just about ready to shoot me. I told 'em I'd do right by her, and marry her if they'd let me, and they said I'd better do just that, or they'd never speak to either of us. So, we got married there, in our last year of high school."

Ellie let out a low whistle. "Were you scared?"

"Like heck. I was just a kid, and there I was, supposed to be takin' care of my Mother and Tommy, and here I'd gone and got a wife and a kid in the space of a year. She moved in with me at home, and that's where Sarah was born. I graduated that spring, but she didn't, on account of takin' care of the baby."

There was a long pause, and Ellie asked in a quiet voice, "What happened to her?"

"We separated when Sarah was five. Things weren't workin' out."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Joel shut his eyes. "She wanted to live her life, go to college... Listen, that ain't the point of that story. The point of that story is that love don't happen when we want it and how we want it. It happens, and I'm not sayin' if it's right or wrong, or easy or good, or nothin'. Just sayin' that's how it is. So don't worry about it. Things'll work out."

"Yeah. People always say that," Ellie murmured. Joel looked her in the eye.

"Hey. Since when do people always say that?"

"Never mind," she murmured, burying her chin in her arms. "Thanks for telling me about Sarah's mom."

The more Ellie thought about it, the more she thought of this story as a trust. Joel didn't say so, but the sheer fact he had confided in her proved that she now had something of him that she was meant to repay. And though she didn't know when, or why, or even how, she fully intended to pay him back. That was when the resolve began, and when it all began to be okay in her mind. It had to be only a matter of time before everything was okay around her as well. It had to be.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Tommy rose with the sun and sought out Joel before the girls were awake. Well, he did not know for a fact if Ellie was awake, he only decided to let Maria sleep for a little longer, and did his best to dress quietly, and slip out. His older brother was not hard to find. The air was crisp and cold, and though the sun in the day had burned away a good deal of the snow, the air was still enough to make one shiver.

Joel had arisen even before Tommy, and was stationed on one of the catwalks surrounding the main generator of the plant, silently soaking up the rising sun's glow. He heard Tommy's footsteps, but did not turn.

"Mornin'," Tommy greeted, and Joel just shifted his weight to his other leg, hooking a thumb through one of the belt loops of his jeans.

"Good to see the sunrise, ain't it," Tommy offered, and Joel grunted his assent.

"Can't deny that view."

They were silent for a minute longer, and Tommy inched his way into the periphery of Joel's vision.

"Everything alright?" Joel asked at length, and Tommy nodded.

"Yep. I left Maria sleepin' and I guess Ellie's probably gettin' around about now."

Joel nodded. "I bet you're right."

"You really do care about that little girl, don't you..."

"Tommy." Joel favored him with a hard look.

"Don't go bitin' my head off..." Tommy chuckled. "Just commentin'. She's a spunky thing."

Joel snorted. "That's one way to put it."

"I know you don't want no harm to her, none of us do –"

"Look, if you're feelin' bad about pushin' me to talk to Ellie about all this marryin' and havin' kids stuff, then I'd suggest you go about apologizin' some other way," Joel said, scratching his beard. "Because I'm wishin' we hadn't brought it up to her in the first place."

"Now, Joel –" Tommy began but his brother cut in.

"Don't you 'Now, Joel' me." He pointed a finger. "You know that I was right from the beginning."

"There ain't no other way," Tommy murmured. "You know that."

"Yeah, I do, because you keep remindin' me of it every blessed day. But even if Ellie got married tomorrow and had twenty kids, that wouldn't change  _nothin_ ' out there." Joel stabbed a finger toward the horizon, and the general world it encompassed. "Clickers are still runnin' wild, survivors are still getting' infected, and it'd take a hundred generations for this to die out, and by then it won't matter."

"There would be more people who are immune –"

"There would be more people who are inbred, and miserable," Joel spat. "And you know that. It's a darn shame. And it's a terrible waste of Ellie's happiness."

"Now, you're talkin' like this is goin' to ruin her life," Tommy chuckled. "All we're sayin' is to be purposeful about this marryin' and havin' kids business."

"Tommy, if it was goin' to happen on it's own, it's goin' to happen on it's own!" Joel exclaimed, casting a look over his shoulder as Buckley began to bark. He dropped his voice. "All we've done is make it a bigger deal than it ought to have been."

Tommy took a deep breath of the chilly air, and held it for a moment, before letting it out again. "That's your opinion."

"Listen here, baby brother," Joel said, his voice sarcastic. "You ain't the one that had to look her in the face and tell her this. You ain't the one that has to listen to her cute stupid questions. You ain't the one that –"

"Everything alright up here?"

Both men turned to regard Maria, her arms crossed, looking at them pointedly in the warm morning sunlight. Tommy cleared his throat.

"Yep. Everything's fine."

She shook her head. "Stop talking about it already. Ellie can find her own way."

"Joel's just gettin' –"

"Just  _stop – talking – about it._ " Maria's eyes were cold. The patter of bare feet on the metal stairs was heard behind her and Ellie bounded to the top, panting, her hair askew, her clothing rumpled.

"Holy moly," she breathed. "The sun looks huge."

In the clear morning light Ellie's face looked young and clean, free of any shadow. Her shirt hung limply from her form, and Joel realized with some discomfort that Ellie had apparently not bothered to get dressed from the underlayers out... if that was a delicate way to put it. She folded her arms across her chest, and Joel cursed inwardly, hoping she had not noticed his staring. Maybe she used to be able to get away with this, but not now.

"Sun's always this size, kid," Joel murmured. "Just looks bigger when it's risin' or settin'."

"How'd you sleep?" Tommy asked.

Ellie shrugged. "Good. You?"

"Good." Tommy grinned.

"Maria let you come out here with no shoes?" Joel scowled. "Gettin' frostbite about now sounds like a great idea, don't it?"

Ellie rolled her eyes, dancing from foot to foot. "It's not that cold."

Tommy put his arm around Maria. "So, we all just goin' to have a family reunion up here?"

"Actually –" Ellie said, putting her hands on her hips. "Me and Maria made breakfast. It's –"

"-A surprise," Maria interrupted, her eyes twinkling at Ellie. "Come on down if you want to see."

"See?" She swore excitedly. "I hope you want to taste!" Ellie began to follow Maria down the stairs, and her voice drifted back up to the men. "Because I sure do..."

Tommy found himself chuckling, and thumped Joel on the back.

"Comin'?" he asked, beginning to descend the stairs.

"In a second..." Joel murmured, squinting, as he caught sight of something moving among the trees. Shouts were heard from the various look-out points farther along the dam, and Joel shielded his eyes with his hand.

"Tommy –" he called, arresting his brother's steps down below. "There's somethin' comin'."

More shouts were heard, and Joel descended the stairs two at a time to join Tommy on the ground, just as Houser hurried up and said, "Tommy, they're askin' for you at the gate. Some new arrivals."

"Bandits?" he asked, as their steps took them quickly toward the south gate.

"No. Refugees."

"The Oklahoma group," Joel breathed.

"I didn't think they were comin' until the spring," Tommy said.

"I didn't think they were comin' at all," Joel murmured. "I was beginnin' to think they weren't goin' to make it."

There was a great commotion at the gate as several of the men on duty argued with each other, and with the look-outs above. Shouting came from the other side of the wall, and Tommy lifted his voice above the racket.

"What is goin' on?"

"Group here!" a look-out called. "From Oklahoma, they say they're not infected –"

"Open the gate and let one of 'em through. Just one!" Tommy vociferated. "We'll talk. And stop pointin' your guns at the rest of 'em for Pete's sake. They can't do nothin' to us out there."

The gate was cranked open just a notch, and a ragged man was pushed through, wearing a dirt and blood-stained overcoat and bearing a military rucksack. His face was covered with a thick black beard, his head with overgrown dark hair, and his pale eyes shone brightly from his haggard face.

"Are you Tommy?" he said, the familiar southwestern accent tugging at Tommy's ears.

"I am. This is my brother Joel."

They did not shake hands, neither made a move to touch the other in any way.

"We're from Oklahoma. There were twenty-four of us to start out with, but there's only seventeen now. We lost a few people when the tornado hit our settlement –"

"Where were you living?" Tommy was searching this man's tale for credibility.

"Middle of nowhere, ghost town that we fortified."

"Any infected in your town?"

"We shot 'em all." The man pushed his hair from his eyes as a slight breeze arose. "Lived there for some time, population hit twenty-five when my wife had a baby, but it died."

Joel interrupted, "Cut the anecdotes and answer the questions."

"Fair enough." He took a deep breath. "Tornado hit early summer. Took out all of our defenses, killed five, and we had no more ammunition, so we hit the road. Heard about this settlement of Fireflies out east, so headed for them, but they were all dead before we got there."

"Soundin' familiar," Joel murmured.

"Has any of your group gotten infected?" Tommy demanded.

"Two. One not too far from home, we shot him. The other someplace near the border of Kansas, we tied her up and left her behind."

Tommy nodded. "Alright. We're goin' to keep you in quarantine for two weeks outside the plant, and after that you're safe to come in. We'll get you supplies, but you report any signs of illness immediately, you understand?"

The man nodded. "Thank you. We're real grateful to have made it this far. Name's Matthew."

Tommy took his hand and shook it.

"Alright, Matthew. Set up camp on the other side of the river, and let us know if you need anything while you're there."

Matthew nodded, and was let back out through the gate. Tommy let out a long breath.

"Well, they're here."

Joel nodded. "They are here."


	7. Chapter 7

Two weeks passed quickly, and as soon as Ellie was told of the Oklahomans' arrival, she grew rather quiet. Nevertheless, she spent a good deal of time upstairs in her room, face pressed against the grimy glass, trying to see out over the wall of the compound.

Exactly fourteen days later, Tommy and Joel ventured without the gate, to check on the quarantined encampment. Ellie stayed behind wordlessly as the men left, helping Maria dry the dishes. Everything seemed so terribly quiet, both inside the house and outside, when a gunshot split the air.

Ellie jumped and dropped the cup she was drying, and it shattered on the floor.

"Sorry," she exclaimed, dropping to her knees, and beginning to swipe at the shards with her hands. "Sorry, I didn't mean to."

Maria glanced out the window, and then turned to Ellie. "Something is going on," she murmured, grabbing her rifle from the corner and striding toward the door. "Don't worry about it, and put on some shoes," Maria called over her shoulder.

Ellie left the mess and raced upstairs, arming herself with her pistol, checking the magazine and seeming satisfied that four rounds remained. Sticking it in the waistband of her pants and doing her best to conceal the lump with her shirt, she hurried back down the stairs and out into the cold morning once again. The hard ground stung her feet, but Ellie focused on just moving, trailing after Maria. Voices reached them, and it seemed a scuffle was going on somewhere outside the gate.

The guards had their rifles trained on the crowd of people just across the river, and Maria hurried across the dam, Ellie right behind her.

"What's going on?" she breathed, but Maria didn't hear her. Dingy tents were set up along the treeline, and some twenty inhabitants were bunched together around a man with dark hair and a beard who had wrestled another man to the ground and prised his weapon from him. Joel and Tommy were sighted, and the man who had pinned the other was vociferating:

"Idiot! Couldn't you keep your finger off the trigger long enough to –"

"Alright, that's enough," Joel put in. The black-bearded man continued to shout over the remonstrances of the man in the snow, and Joel raised his voice. "I said, that's enough. It was an accident."

Tommy pulled the man off his companion, and the other man got to his feet. His hair was also black, but he sported no beard. He looked at the snow, chest heaving, as the other man approached him once again.

"Foolhardy kid," he spat, and the younger man lifted his eyes.

"I said I was sorry," he retorted, his voice clear in the still morning air.

"Oh yeah? Try saying that to the would-be widow of the fella you almost shot!"

Maria waded into the fray, lifting her voice. "That'd be me. What is going on?"

The hubbub quieted, and Tommy cleared his throat.

"This is Maria. And son, I know it was an accident. Just be careful with that thing."

"I know how to handle a gun. I just didn't know we were expecting you today," he muttered.

"You should'a paid more attention," the bearded fellow snapped.

Tommy gestured to the man, his eyes on his wife. "This is Matthew."

Maria nodded. "Maria."

"Pleased to meet you." Matthew took a deep breath. "No signs of infection. I told you we're clean."

"Alright." Tommy nodded. "You need a hand packing up camp?"

Matthew's eyes twinkled. "I think we got it, thank you very much." He seemed to catch sight of something, and listed his head to one side. "This your daughter?"

Ellie looked at Maria, then realized he was talking to her. "Oh! No, a friend. Of Joel's." She gestured, and then stuck out her hand. "I'm Ellie."

"Nice to meet you." He lifted an eyebrow at Joel. "Your young'ns not wear shoes?"

"Ellie..." Joel remonstrated, looking at her feet. "What're you doin'?"

"In a hurry!" she explained, and caught sight of a spattering of blood behind her in the snow. She cursed under her breath. "What the heck..."

"You're bleeding." Ellie looked up to see the man who had misfired when Tommy and Joel approached the camp. He eyed her feet.

"Yeah, I guess," Ellie muttered. "Must have stepped on a piece of that stuff. I broke a cup."

"This's my son, also Matthew. We call him Matt," Matthew explained. "And I swear I taught him how to use a gun." He snorted. "Fat lot a' good it did him."

The young man's face flushed dark. "Just leave it," he growled. Ellie grinned at him.

"Hey, the first time I fired Joel's gun he said I almost blew his head off when I actually saved his life." She wrinkled her nose. "So, we're even."

Matt nodded appreciatively, his face still an odd color. "Thanks," he managed.

"Name's Ellie." She stuck out her hand, and he took it, prying his eyes away from her feet. "You, ah... better get some shoes," he chuckled.

"Yeah." Ellie pulled her hand away, and began to look about for Maria, who had headed off to help the Oklahomans strike camp. Joel alone had witnessed the exchange, keenly aware of Ellie's thin shirt and innocent conversation.

"You should go back and put some shoes on, kid," he said as she passed him. "I'm comin' so I can have a look at that cut."

"Jeez," Ellie snorted. "It doesn't even hurt."

"That's 'cause your feet're frozen."

"They are not." Ellie stood one one foot and tried her best to wiggle her toes, not succeeding very well. "Alright, maybe." A shiver ran down her frame. "I'm headed back."

"Ellie?" Tommy was calling. "Give Maria a hand with this?"

Joel swore under his breath. "She ain't wearin' shoes, Tommy!" he called.

"This'll just take a minute."

Joel shook his head. "Go on, then, but be quick."

Ellie nodded, and scampered through the snow, her eyes on Maria where she was wrestling a tent pole to the ground, and as a result, she did not see the figure directly in front of her until they collided. Both fell to the snowy ground from the impact of the collision, and Ellie was the first to scramble up, giving the other individual her hand and pulling them to their feet.

It was a young woman, perhaps a few years older than Ellie, with long waving hair tumbling from underneath a filthy stocking cap pulled low over her brow. They both began babbling at the same instant.

"I'm so sorry –"

"Are you okay? I didn't mean –"

"It was my fault, I wasn't –"

"I'm fine, are  _you_  –"

They both stammered to a halt and regarded each other dumbly for a minute, and Ellie recovered her voice first.

"I – uh, sorry, I didn't see you there," she began, twisting her fingers. "Clumsy, and all."

"Ellie?" Maria's voice was heard calling.

"Coming!" she shouted, turning her attention back to the young woman, whose eyes had drifted to Ellie's feet. Ellie stepped one foot upon the other protectively.

"Oh, don't you start too -"

"Don't you have any shoes?" the girl began.

Ellie retorted, "Of course I have shoes. I'm just not wearing them. I mean –"

The girl laughed, a light, friendly sound. "It's okay. Are you sure you're alright?"

"Fine." Ellie bobbed her head. "You?"

"Fine. I'm Anna." The young woman stuck out her hand, and Ellie took it, almost shyly.

"That's awesome. My mom's name was Anna."

"Really? Well, then, it's a sign."  
"Sign of what?" Ellie regarded her blankly.

"That we should be friends," Anna chuckled.

"Oh! Yeah. Of course." A bright color came over Ellie's cheeks, and she seemed to break forth from a reverie. "Maria... I – I've got to go. See you later?"

"You didn't tell me your name!" Anna called, as Ellie hurried off over the cold ground. Ellie's eyes widened.

"It's Ellie," she called back, turning briefly, and smiling. "Ellie. See you later!"

For some reason, she worked in the cold much longer than she would have thought she could, owing to the warm feeling somewhere deep within her as the light from Anna's smile lingered in her eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

That night, those from the settlement joined with the inhabitants of the power plant to host a great welcoming feast for everyone. Meat was hunted, supplies were pulled forth, and the water from the river turned the turbine so that all the stoves had electricity to cook some of the most amazing foods that Ellie had ever smelled. The journeyers rushed about, chattering in anticipation, for they had been trained to subsist on much less for many months now.

At their house, Maria turned from where she was stirring the pot of corn and saw Ellie rising from the table and attempting to hobble toward the window.

"What do you think you're doing, young lady?"

"I heard something," Ellie replied. "Outside."

"Sit down, and keep off those feet," Maria commanded, brandishing the spoon. "Don't they hurt?"

"Like heck," Ellie affirmed.

"Then stay sitting down, and I'll -" Maria stopped short, hearing a crash from the other room. "Joel?" she called. "Is that you?"

The crash was followed by a final bang and the squeaking of the door being pushed open, and a sheepish-looking Matt stood in the doorway.

"Your door, ah..." he stammered.

"It was latched."  
"Oh. Well, it isn't anymore." He looked about at the kitchen and its two occupants.

"Can I help you?" Maria asked, squinting, and stabbing the spoon back into the corn. Ellie had tiptoed back to her seat and waved; Matt grinned. "Hi, Ellie. Mrs... Tommy?"

"Maria," she returned. "Something happen?"

"No, I just... I was sent here to fetch Tommy, my dad has something to ask him about."

"He's not here," Maria replied, a little kinder. "He's probably in the turbine room, Steve called him in about half an hour ago."

"Oh." Matt seemed at a loss of where to go from there, and Maria beckoned him to a chair.

"Have a seat. He'll be back any minute now. It isn't urgent?"

"I don't think so," Matt shook his head. "At least, it didn't sound like it."

"Maria won't let me help her, so I've got to stay parked here like a stupid invalid," Ellie complained. Matt ducked his head to the side and tried to peer under the table.

"Your feet aren't frostbitten, are they?"

"Probably are, I'm not sure. They sort of... I don't know, it's like they feel hot."

"Burning and tingling?" Matt's eyes were sympathetic. "I got frostbite at the first snow, and let me tell you, it takes forever for the pain to go away. It didn't help that we had to keep moving. You're lucky to be in a place like this, you know."

"We sure are," Maria assented from the stove. "Fighting off bandits is nothing to being in the open with the infected."

Matt chuckled. "Exactly. The open... traveling, it's –"

"I know," Ellie broke in. "Me and Joel, we traveled almost a year from Boston to here, just us two. I know what it's like being in the open.

"Like hell," Matt murmured, and Ellie slapped a hand to the table.

"Exactly what I was going to say."

Ellie saw Matt reaching for the stack of paper, but was not quick enough to stop him.

"What's this?" he asked, pulling it closer and beginning to leaf through the doodles.

"Nothing," Ellie murmured, striving to reclaim the pile. "It's... trash."

"'Savage Starlight III: The New Generation'?" Matt read aloud. "Are you serious? I've heard of it, but never read it. I didn't know there was a third one."

"Well, there is now. I'm writing it. But you can't see, it's under wraps until publication," Ellie said, pulling the stack back to her side of the table and turning the top page face down.

Matt met her eyes, a smile striving to gain control of his face. "I want to see."

"No. They're horrible."

"Not as horrible as mine."

"You draw too?"

"No. But if I did, I swear yours would be a hundred times better."

Ellie hesitated. "I only did this because Maria said to."  
"And that," Maria called over her shoulder, "was only because you wouldn't stop griping about how there were no more comics to be found."

"Exactly." Ellie scooted her chair back and limped into the next room, and Matt stood to his feet, following her.

"Whoah, I thought you were supposed to stay off your feet."

"I will, I will," Ellie sighed, retrieving a battered paperback, and handing it to Matt, who opened to the first page.

"Hmm," he said after a moment. "Very interesting."

"You can borrow it. Bring it back when you're finished, and I'll explain the sequel to you, 'Savage Starlight II: Dawn of Victory'."

"Dawn of Victory? Cool title."

"Thanks," Ellie replied airily. "It sorta stuck."

"Wait a sec." Matt eyed her. "You wrote the sequel?"

Ellie took the comic from him and paged to the back cover, stabbing a finger at the worn print. "You see that? 'To be continued'? Worst three words ever printed." She shrugged. "I had to fix it."

Matt was grinning and nodding. "I see. Well, that should be good. What's the story?"

"It's a sequel. You've got to read the first one first."

"Okay, if you say so," he huffed. "Bossy."

Ellie smirked. "But I'm right."

"You are." He smiled. "Thanks for the lend. I appreciate it. I haven't had anything to read in months. Man, do I miss it."

Ellie plopped to a seat on the sofa and Matt followed suit, watching as the girl folded her feet together, wincing at the contact they made.

"You alright?"

"Oh, yeah. What'd you read?"

"Whatever I could get my hands on. I've got a book called 'Dialogues of Fenelon,' which I keep in my backpack because it's little. At first I thought it was dry, but it has a lot of fascinating subject matter."

"-Like?" Ellie's eyebrows lifted. "What kind of name is Fenelon, anyway?"

"He was a French guy in the 1800's, according to the preface. He writes about life, and God, and the human soul, and the purpose of everything in life."

Ellie experienced an almost imperceptible shudder. "I don't believe in that stuff."

"Why not?"

"Because only jerks do." She gritted her teeth. "I mean, I never heard about it much at all until I met this one dude, and he talked like that... and he was a huge –." The word she supplemented here seemed to shock Matt just a bit. He stared at her for a while, and then recovered adroitly.

"Wow." He cleared his throat. "Strong... opinions."

"I killed him. He had it coming for what he tried to do to me."

Matt began to get an inkling of what she had dealt with, and simply nodded slowly. "Well, sorry, then. The other book I have is 'Moby Dick'."

"Are you kidding? I've always wondered what a Moby Dick was! Can I read it?"

Matt coughed to hide his laughter. "Sure. It's a story about a whale."

"A whale?" Ellie furrowed her brow. "A whale-of-a-what?"

"Just a whale. A regular whale."  
"Like in the sea?"

"Yep. And all the sailors who are hunting it."

Ellie cocked her head. "Okay. Yeah. I want to read it."

"I'll bring it by later. On loan from Matt's Traveling Library."

"Well, be sure and bring back your loan from Ellie's Comics Unlimited, or I'll charge you a fine," she said, pointing a finger.

Matt just opened his mouth to reply when Tommy entered the house, stomping melted stow from his boots. Matt stood to his feet.

"Tommy – hi. My dad is looking for you."

"Matt? What's goin' on?"

"Not sure, but he said for me to go find you."

Tommy turned back around in the doorway. "Well, let's go find out then."

"Bye, Ellie," Matt called, following after Tommy and sending her a wink. "I'll read this and bring it back."

"Alright. Don't forget to bring me yours."

"Will do."

Tommy exchanged a dumbfounded look with Maria, who simply waved him away to follow after the retreating Matt.

Ellie looked at her lap on the couch. She'd forgotten to ask Matt if he knew Anna.


	9. Chapter 9

"Now, hold still," Joel murmured, scooting his chair closer to Ellie, who had her foot propped up next to him.

"It tickles," she complained, and he gave her a silent look, before taking her ankle in his hand and turning her foot so he could see the sole. He pressed the pad of his finger to the pink-tinted flesh around the cut, and Ellie flinched.

"Hurt?"  
"Kinda," she murmured.

"Well, nothin' to do but walk on it for tonight. Wear socks and all, and give it some air when we get home," Joel said, giving her leg a gentle slap. "Maria's goin' to have a fit if she sees that we ain't ready yet."

"Are you kidding? I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I've been smelling this stuff cook all day." Ellie stood to her feet and tightened her ponytail. Joel looked doubtful.

"Did you have a shower?"

Ellie shrugged. "Day before yesterday."

Joel nodded. "That'll do. We need to get a move on."

Maria's footsteps were heard in the next room, and she called, "Ellie! Get your shoes, it's time to go!"

"Coming," she returned, pinching a kernel of corn from the pot and sticking it into her mouth, giving an innocent look at Joel who simply snorted. Maria hurried in, and regarded the girl in disbelief.

"Ellie? Shoes?"  
"Got it," she said, limping quickly from the room. Joel approached and took the pot in hand, turning to Maria.

"This it?"

"I took the other stuff down already. Tommy's going to meet us there."

"Just take it easy," he muttered. "This ain't a big to-do. Nobody's expecting anything."

"-Except corn!" Ellie called from the next room.

"Ain't talkin' to you," Joel retorted in a loud voice. He dropped his tone, and met Maria's eyes. "Don't put her in a situation tonight, 'hear?"

"What do you mean." Maria met his gaze steadily. "So she made a friend. I'm happy for her."

"This Matt fella can stay a friend, as far as it concerns me."

"But it doesn't concern you –"

"-Or you and Tommy," Joel put in dryly.

"It concerns Ellie. So we'll leave it to her."

Instead of replying, Joel shifted his eyes to the girl who approached and stood in the doorway. "Time to go?"

"Feet alright?" Maria asked brightly, nodding, and beckoning Joel and Ellie out the door, shutting it behind them.

"Good enough. Man, I am  _so_  hungry." Ellie wrapped her arms about herself. "I can't wait til dinner actually starts."

"Now, this is for the new group, you know that, kiddo," Joel began, and Ellie regarded him with horror.

"You mean we can't eat any of it?"

"Relax." He chuckled, and jostled the pot. "There should be enough for everybody. Just makin' sure you remember why we're doin' this."

Ellie looked as if she was preparing to respond when a voice was heard calling her name.

"Ellie?"  
"Matt – hi!" She looked up to see the young man approaching, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his worn coat. "Did you bring the book?"

He presented the title with a flourish. "Herman Melville's Moby Dick, right here."

"Awesome!" Ellie seized it in her hands, and flipped to the first page as Joel and Maria walked on. Matt watched the girl closely as her eyes passed quickly over the text, her lips slightly forming some of the words until she stopped, and furrowed her brow. "'Circumambulate'?" she pronounced with a distasteful look. "What's that?"

Matt suppressed a grin. "It's a word that means... uh – walk around?"

"Then why the heck didn't they say that?"

"They didn't use to talk like that." Matt leaned close, and underlined a sentence with his finger, reading, "'What do they here?' It's a much more beautiful way to speak, isn't it?"

"I guess." Ellie shrugged. "If everyone still knows what you're saying."

Matt pointed to Joel and Maria who were entering the building. "We're late. You want to sit together? I can help translate for you." He wiggled his eyebrows and gestured toward the book.

"Sure." Ellie wiped her nose. "Is it a cool story?"

"Very cool." Matt touched her arm lightly. "C'mon, let's hurry. My dad will wonder where I am."

"I can't go too fast," Ellie grimaced, waving her foot inside her sneaker. "Cut still healing. Hurts like nothin' else."

"Need help?"

"Nah." Ellie picked up the pace, ambling along with a gait bearing suspicious resemblance to a lobster. "You laughing at me?" she grinned, seeing Matt's comical expression.

"No," Matt straightened his face with some effort. "I just wish you'd let me help."

"What, and give me a piggy-back or something?" Ellie stared at him. "We're here, anyway." She heaved open the door and beckoned Matt through, her eyes gradually adjusting to the dim interior lit up by a few yellow electric lights mounted on the walls. The building was long and filled with two rows of tables, placed end to end; a large group of people were already present, milling around, taking, and filling the place with a pleasant warmth from simple body heat.

Someone was shouting for order and gradually the crowd quieted, small ripples of conversation dwindling to a stop as Tommy stood up on a chair.

"I'm goin' to keep this brief, because I know you all are hungry, and ready to get on with this thing. We're here to welcome the group from Oklahoma, so we're going to welcome them best we can. We're a community here. Everybody owes to each other anything they'd owe to their own families, and expects the same in return. It's good to have some newcomers, and hope this is a good thing for everybody. Now, I know there's been some cookin' goin' on today, am I right?" A chuckle ran through the group, and a few hoots were heard. "Alright. So lets get on with enjoyin' it."

Ellie turned to Matt as Tommy clambered down from the stool. "This reminds me of the speeches they'd give at the school I used to go to."

"You used to go to school?" Matt eyed her. "That's neat."

"What, didn't you?" Ellie raised her voice to be heard over the noise as the crowd resumed conversation around them.

"Couldn't spare me in our zone, I guess," Matt shrugged. "It was really little, soldiers only came a few times a year. I worked with my dad since I was old enough to haul tools." He looked a little unsatisfied at having to relate this of himself, and ran a hand through his hair. Ellie stared at him.

"How'd you learn to read?"

"Dad taught me. And then I'd read in all my spare time. And write. And study all I could get my hands on, because I wanted to be smart." Matt chuckled. "I dreamed of being a book smuggler when I grew up."

Ellie snickered. "What, because there were enough people already smuggling the important stuff? You know, like food?" She gestured to the forming line. "Speaking of."

They wriggled into spots in line, and Matt tapped Ellie, who was in front of him to regain her attention. "Hey. You admit that reading is great."

She shrugged. "Yeah. When you're not shiving clickers or trying to, you know," she gestured, "stay alive."

Matt looked thoughtful, and leaned down, his mouth near Ellie's ear, feeling it was somehow wrong to be shouting over the hubub on such an important topic of conversation to him. "That's the tragedy of society. We're reduced to simply staying alive, when, in a place like this, it is completely possible – and I'd argue, completely necessary – to re-implement things that only existed before the infection. Things like real education, higher thought, community, belief in God..." He smiled. "I know I sound like a weirdo. But that's my dream. To write about this stuff, and convince others that life can be rebuilt. That it need to be rebuilt."

Ellie looked up and met his eyes which were shining with the light from his passion, when a voice near her interrupted her partially-formed thought.

"Hi, you guys!"

She turned to behold Anna, the dirty stocking cap no longer obscuring her face, her long hair braided over one shoulder. Ellie did a double-take, and then gave the girl a hasty hug.

"Hi!" She looked down in horror as she realized she'd stepped on Anna's foot in the act. "Oh – sorry! I – did I hurt you?"

"Hm? No, I didn't feel anything." The young woman grinned. "What'd you do?"

"Stood on your foot," Ellie flushed. "I'm so clumsy."

"No sweat. You know Matt?"

"Yeah! He's cool!" Ellie exclaimed. "He was telling me all his crazy ideas about writing."

"Oh." Anna rolled her eyes, giving Ellie an opportunity to see the bright color of them even in the dim light of the building. "That again."

"Knock it off," Matt grumbled, giving Anna a gentle push. "Just because you have no dreams..."

"How do you know I don't have dreams?" Anna crossed her arms indignantly.

"Yeah." Ellie draped her arm around the girl in mock support. "How do you know she doesn't have dreams?" The girls snickered at one another.

Matt squinted. "Because... you're young. You've not yet  _progressed_ to that point of  _maturity_..." His voice assumed a strange intonation, and Ellie looked at Anna.

"Why's he talking like that?"

"Thinks it makes him sounds smart. Heard this English guy talk on a movie one time, and he's done it ever since."

"A movie?" Ellie stared in disbelief. "You've seen movies?"

"We used to watch them in the zone in Oklahoma. We had a projector set up in the church, until we lost power."

"We should totally do that here!" Ellie exclaimed, helping herself to an empty plate, one of the many assorted dishes brought by the families, and doling them out to her two companions. "That would be awesome!"

Something happened as the three helped themselves to plentiful food and sat in a corner together to partake, Matt seated on the floor, Anna perching on an odd tri-legged stool, and Ellie squatting indian style, her plate on her knees. None of them realized it, but Matt's dream was not as far off as he had thought; three young people who before had been only occupied with surviving, were together, laughing, talking, engaging in debates, foyning, jibing, and joining in with the other survivors buttoned snugly in the warmed metal building to create a sense of community, a sense of safety and restoration. A sense of friendship.


	10. Chapter 10

That night, Ellie returned home with a warm feeling spreading through her entire being. A full stomach, the blurred light of the electric bulbs outside her window, and the elation of a night of conversation with peers lulled her mind into a happy haze, she drifted off to sleep so quickly that the next thing she knew was awakening to a knock on the door.

"Ellie?"

"Y-yeah?" she said, sitting up and pushing her hair back from her face, her eyes remaining sealed shut against the obtrusive light of the dawning.

"You up?"

"You bet, just... getting dressed," she managed, sliding from the edge of the bed and rubbing her eyes into wakefulness. There was no reply from the corridor.

"Joel?" Ellie jumped into her jeans and hopped to the door, cracking it open. "What are you doing today?"

"Um..." Joel scratched his head, and then squinted. "You just now wakin' up?"

"Maybe." Ellie pursed her lips.

"Ellie..." Joel eyed her. "We got work to do."

"But we stayed up late last night, it was fun!"

"Yeah... Saw you over there with Matt and the other girl. You three seemed to really hit it off."

Ellie nodded her head vigorously. "So, can I come with you to do whatever you're doing? I might see them again."

Joel took a deep breath, hesitating, then his eyes smiled. "If you want. Though I warn you, if you're gonna tag along, you're liable to get put to work."

"That's fine!" Ellie called, slamming the door again, and zipping on her sweatshirt. Frantically, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail and glanced in the mirror. Cursing under her breath, she rubbed at the flaky remains of dried saliva in the corner of her mouth, and regarded her reflection again.

"Hi, Anna," she mouthed, grinning, and putting her hands on her hips. "Wanna be friends?"

"Ellie?" Joel called, and she jumped, uttering, "Yeah?" with a slight squeak.

"I'm headed down to the stables, you gonna meet me there?"

"Sure, coming," she called back, taking a deep breath, and pronouncing, "Breakfast," to her reflection, before glaring at herself and scampering from the room.

Maria's back was to her in the kitchen as she was busy storing the remains of the leftovers from the night before. Ellie stood on her tiptoes and peeked over her shoulder, uttering her best imitation of a clicker's call.

Swearing loudly, Maria jumped, and whirled around. "Ellie!" Her eyes were wide, her hand clenched upon the nearest implement, a wooden spoon. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry," Ellie giggled, covering her mouth to hide her snickering. "Couldn't resist. Can I have a biscuit?"

"I should say no, after that..." Maria muttered, a smile pulling the corner of her mouth in spite of herself. "You could get hurt. Good thing for you I didn't have a knife."

"Or a gun," Ellie added, swiping one of the hard drop biscuits, and taking a nip from one of the peaks of hardened dough.

"Gotta go, helping Joel," she called, sticking the biscuit in her pocket, and heading toward the door.

"Have fun," Maria called, and Ellie stopped, turning around a line between her brows.

"Okay...?"

"If you see Matt and Anna, that is."

Ellie swore good-naturedly. "You all are totally on my case, aren't you."

"Totally." Maria gave her a swat. "Be careful."

"'Kay."

Throwing open the saggy screen door into the morning, Ellie inhaled a deep lungful of the cold air, and thought what a wonderful thing it was to be alive at this precise moment. Flutters of insecurity were pushed aside, as she licked her lips, and scanned the courtyard from the porch, not, however, searching for a bearded man in a plaid shirt, but a girl with long dark hair...

"Ellie?" A voice startled her from her staring, and she caught sight of Matt waving, and striking across the compound. "Morning! I brought your book back!"

"You finished it? Holy moly." Clattering down the steps, Ellie took her precious copy of  _Savage Starlight_ into her hands, and looked up at the young man. "You are one heck of a fast reader."

"Couldn't put it down," Matt admitted, his eyes holding her gaze. "Fascinating plot. There was a character in there that reminded me a lot of someone I know."

"Yeah? Who was it?" Ellie asked, tucking the book under her arm, and adding, "I don't guess I need to say I didn't finish yours. It's gonna be a while, I think, that's a freakin' long book."

Matt chuckled. "It's alright, take your time. Look at this and guess." He pulled the comic out from under her arm, and flipped to a page near the center, showing a young woman standing with her feet apart, brandishing her weapon with a determined look on her face.

"Yeah, that's Daniela Star."

"Remind you of someone?"

Ellie peered at the picture, then shrugged. "What I wish I was like?"

"My dad told me that he talked to Joel and Tommy a lot last night, and that Joel explained your trek. That is quite the adventure. He spoke well of you."

"Yeah?" Ellie ducked her head, a strange tingle painting her cheeks. "Well, the journey was hell, that's for sure."

"Sounds like you're a really brave girl. How's your foot, by the way?" With a surprising amount of tact - for the skill seemed to have survived the pandemic in puny proportions - Matt deftly changed the subject.

"Oh, my foot? Fine, I guess. I hadn't thought any more about it." She stomped firmly, then winced. "Okay, a little sore. I feel like a wimp."

"Don't." Matt's eyes were serious. "Frostbite is nothing to sneeze at. I know."

"Yeah, how did you get frostbite anyway?" Ellie asked, furrowing her brow. "Sounds like a story to tell."

"Well," Matt took a deep breath, crossing his arms. "There's this thing called winter? And if you're in it without proper shoes, you know..." He gestured.

"Oh, ha ha." Ellie twisted her mouth in a sideways grin. "By the way..." She hesitated. "Where is Anna? Do you know?"

"Oh, I think I saw her with the group gathering kindling. She wanted to get put to work right away, she's good at making friends."

"Wanna go help?"

Matt looked slightly bemused. "Okay."

"Awesome. Lemme tell Joel, and I'll be right back."

On feet that seemed to have never known the meaning of frostbite, Ellie sprinted across the courtyard and disappeared in the stables. A brief moment later, she emerged again, and bounded up beside him.

"Okay, let's go."

They walked in brisk silence for a long while, and then Matt spoke up.

"I'm going to write a book, I think."

"Oh yeah? What about?"

"I'm not sure yet, that's the trouble..." Matt chuckled.

"I've got some ideas," Ellie shrugged, delving her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt, and pushing them together until she could rub her fingers through the fabric.

"Lack of ideas is certainly not the problem," Matt smiled, tipping his face skywards and squinting into the harsh sunlight. "It's narrowing them down. Choosing which are worth writing. Because in a world like this..." He hesitated. "I don't mean to offend, but reading comics and stories about whales is not that important."

"I think it is," Ellie retorted quickly. "Stuff like that keeps people's minds off all the crap they have to do day to day just to survive."

"True," Matt admitted. "But if I'm going to write a book, I don't want it to be made-up. I want it to be real, or at least extremely important."

Ellie bobbed her head, and seemed to ruminate on this for a long moment.

"I guess I could write a book," she offered at length, looking at the ground, at her sneakers marching one in front of the other as they passed the last dilapidated building and reached the north gate.

"Yeah? What would it be about?"

"Stuff. People. It would be real, and important." Her voice was low. "Because then they wouldn't get forgotten."

Matt took a deep breath, realizing she spoke of someone, something hidden in her past. "The past is like desert," he began slowly. "Each new wave of golden-grained sand that sweeps over the surface buries the first, until one is no longer certain which was first, and which has simply shifted to cover the mixing of all the grains. They're hidden amongst each other in their vastness, impossible to sort out, and heavily inscrutable to sort through." He paused for a moment, and saw from the tail of his eye that Ellie was staring at him.

"Is that from a movie or something?"

Matt looked confused. "Is what from a movie?"

"What you said."

He shrugged. "No... That's just what I think."

"You talk like a movie," Ellie remarked with resolve in her green eyes. "It's cool."

"Well, thanks," Matt chuckled, chafing his cold hands together. "I write things in my head all the time. But wait." He met her gaze. "You were talking about what you would write."

They paused at the top of the rise, and looked out for a moment among the snowy trees, and didn't catch sight of Anna or the group.

"They'll come back soon," Ellie murmured. "I guess we'll just wait, I don't have any weapons."

Matt nodded, and then elbowed her gently. "Your story?"

"Oh. Yeah, it would be real." Ellie's face was tilted downwards, her lips red against the paleness of her face in the cold. "Meaning, like, it really happened. A long time ago."

"It happened to you?"

She nodded. "I had this best friend. She was –" Ellie pursed her lips as if trying to formulate the best way to describe what was tumbling about in her head. "Her eyes were brown, and had all these different colors in them. It was like, around the outside was almost black, and in the middle was that color that's like, in the cracks of wood when it's wet."

Matt listened in silence, as Ellie's voice grew tight.

"And when she'd look at you, it was like the world was going to be fine, even though it wasn't, but it was just because you knew there was somebody who was thinking of you sometimes, and would do anything for you. I would write about that."

She hardly realized that she was crying until she felt the chill of a tear drip from her nose, and Matt regarded her with a gentle look.

"That sounds like a story worth telling," he said quietly.


	11. Chapter 11

In the coming weeks, Joel worked alongside Matt and his father in the engine room, finding that the Oklahomans had a talent for repairing machinery that he himself possessed, and though they exchanged but little talk that concerned the youngsters they cared about, Joel knew it was in the forefront of a few minds, likely theirs. Maria and Tommy's, to say the least.

The thought disturbed Joel greatly, in fact, it put almost excessive strain upon his and Tommy's already flimsy relationship. Joel did his best not to make eye contact with Tommy at the house, or engage him in conversation beyond what was necessary for their work. Maria would eye Joel, but say nothing. This went on for some time.

As the spring sun began to thaw the snow more and more each day, Joel took it upon himself to hunt extra game for the community. With the addition of the new survivor group, something near a barter system had been worked out. Tommy had everyone operating on a communal system before: everyone shared everything, but with the differing skills, it was quickly becoming much more practicable to have a market situation. What any man had, he could trade for something he needed. And so Joel hunted deer and wild birds and traded them to anyone who needed it; someone who didn't have a hunter in the family, or was otherwise incapable of procuring meat. One of the women brought seeds and intended to plant a garden. They were on their way to becoming a regular town.

Joel was surprised when, one warm day, Matt approached him as he was preparing to ride out into the woods.

"Joel?"

He turned, one foot in his stirrup.

"Matt. How's it goin'?"

"It's going." The young man bobbed his head, his hands in his pockets. "Going shooting?" He gestured awkwardly, yanking a hand free, and indicating the rifle strapped to Joel's back.

"What's it look like." Joel chuckled, and returned his booted foot to the ground. "Can I help you?"

"I'd like to talk to you," Matt blurted, his eyes meeting Joel's. "Can I saddle up, and come with?"

"Sure, but if you aim on gettin' any meat today –"

A darker color suffused his face. "I won't scare the game off."

Joel scratched his beard and took a deep breath as Matt led forth a pale horse, and clambered to its bare back.

"No tack?"

Matt shrugged. "This'll do."  
Joel watched the young man closely. He was smart, and handled his tools well, and safely. That he was gun-shy was a real shame, because he also rode well, despite the lack of saddle and bridle. They ventured into the woods a little ways before Joel cleared his throat.

"Well," he began, pitching his voice a little louder than he normally liked to speak in the forest, so that his words would reach Matt's ears, riding a few feet away from him. "Whatever you wanted to say, I s'pose you should say it while you're still young. Then we can get on with the day."

Matt cleared his throat. "So, this is going to sound really stupid."

"Now that you told me that, it certainly will." Joel sat up, stretching his back, and guided his mount with his knees around a tight grouping of pines.

A small off-branch of the river ran near them, and the sound of it filled the area, bouncing from the trees in a thousand echoes, and settling Matt's rising nervousness. The creek. The river, the water, that was his encouragement.

"So, Ellie tells me that she can't swim."

Joel nodded in assent. "That's right."

"Ever think of teaching her?"

"Lots." Joel did his best to keep his tone of voice under regulation, but he still squinted at the boy. "What're you getting' at?"

"I'd like to teach her," Matt said, his voice strange, and hurried. "We're friends, and we do all kinds of stuff together. I want her to be able to swim. Not just for survival, but for fun. Survival isn't all there is to life, fun is something that humankind can be trained to live without, but in the long term breeds a society of ill –"

"Son, you think I haven't thought of all that?" Joel regarded him sharply. "We don't all have the time to dream that some do."

Matt reddened again. "I do my share of work."

"You do. But keep that dreamin' to a minimum, that kind of stuff'll get you nowhere in the real world."

"Just because you're hardened against the simple joys of life doesn't mean that I should be," Matt asserted stiffly, his tone rigid. "Or Ellie."

"She ain't. Have you ever had a conversation with her?"

"Yes. Multiple times."

"Well, so've I. I traveled with that girl all the way across the country, and let me tell you somethin', she's a wonder for keepin' her feet on the ground and her head in the clouds at the same time. Now, I wouldn't've believed it was possible to be so smart about some things and so darn stupid about others, but that kid kept me guessing. We kept each other goin'. And to be plain honest with you," Joel met the young man's eyes, "I was wantin' to teach Ellie to swim myself."

Matt held his gaze, an intake of breath swelling his chest ever so slightly. Joel held up a hand. "But I don't want to keep her from havin' friends and doin' stuff with 'em same as normal kids, so if you want to, and she's willin', go ahead." His face took on an almost resigned expression which was quickly replaced with ferocity. "But don't you let any harm come to her. If I'm goin' to trust you with that girl, you'd better not let me down, or I swear I'll come after you."

Matt nodded, his words earnest. "You can trust me. I'd never want to do something that she wasn't comfortable with. I'd never make her do anything she doesn't want to. I'll keep her safe."

"Good. Now scuttle, and let me hunt."

Matt departed in grateful haste, the wind in his hair feeling jubilant, the smooth hide of the beast beneath him rubbing against his jeans. He dismounted the moment he was within the gate, running to a stop, and handing off the beast to Houser, who was standing by calmly smoking a kind of cigar of his own invention.

"Everything alright, Matt?" he called, and the young man nodded.

"Certainly, thanks."

Houser nodded, and began to remove the horse's tack as Matt hurried along at a fast clip, his boots making sucking noises in the muddied ground.

"Ellie!" he called, Tommy and Maria's house coming into view. "Ellie?" He clattered up the steps, and eased open the door. "Hello?"

"Matt?" Tommy's voice was heard calling.

"Hi, Tommy." Matt couldn't see where the voice was coming from, and so looked at his boots, leaning against the doorframe. "Ellie in?"

"She's with Maria down at the hall," Tommy's voice called back. "I thought you went with Joel."

"I did," Matt chuckled. "But I'm not much good hunting, so he sent me back, and now I'm looking for Ellie."

"Alright then." Tommy came into the room, wiping his hand on a shop towel, and opening a drawer beneath the counter, searching through the assorted implements until he found a wrench. "Pipes' backed up again," he explained with a shrug. "Nobody's complainin', but I'm still goin' to give it a few turns and see if that doesn't do the trick."

Matt nodded. "Alright, well, I'm going to find Ellie. See you around."

"See you, son."

Matt didn't have to go far, he encountered Ellie on her way back from the hall, chucking rocks ahead of her into the dust, and whistling merrily. She had her eyes on her feet and didn't see him until a pebble made contact with Matt's shin and he took in his breath.

"Ouch. What're you trying to do, lame somebody?"

Ellie looked up and her eyes widened. "Oh, hi! Sorry, didn't see you."

"Apparently." He crossed his arms and tipped his face upwards, regarding the bright sun beating down on them. "Warm day, hm?"

"Yeah, no kidding. If Tommy doesn't get the water fixed we'll be back to our bucket-of-water showers."

"What about the creek?"

Ellie's eyes were a bit wide. "Oh, I don't go there. I can't swim, remember."

"I could teach you."

She squinted. "You're pulling my leg."

"No, I'm serious." He smiled. "You need to learn – I'd like to teach you."

Matt pushed his hands into his pockets as he watched Ellie hesitate a few feet away, her eyes fixed on him.

"Alright," she said at last, bobbing her head. "Teach me to swim. But if you're going to do something for me, I've got to do something for you."

Matt's face took on an almost hurt expression, and he lifted a hand. "No, no, I'd rather – "

"Look, I'm not crazy about water in the first place. So doing this makes it like a deal." Ellie shrugged. "I can manage that."

Matt hesitated, then his face broke into a lopsided smile. "Alright. I've got something you can do for me."

"What is it?" Something about his expression unnerved her; her voice was filled with skepticism, her tone wary, something he'd never heard from her.

"It's ah – my hair." He shrugged. "Somebody's got to cut it, and I can't see to do it myself. At least not the back."

"Oh." Ellie's face lit up. "I can do that. I used to do it for Joel all the time."

"Grand." Matt pursed his lips. "Creek first, or haircut?"

"Creek," Ellie said decidedly. "Let's get this over with."


	12. Chapter 12

As the two walked, Matt tried to explain it would likely be a several-session arrangement, as one can't really learn to swim well just by trying once.

"No way, I want to learn it all today. You teach me good, and then I'll swim like a fish, end of story," Ellie said, watching as Matt paused to retrieve a coil of light rope from where it hung on the side of the stable. "What's that for?"

"Safety. The water doesn't run very quick, but I want you to feel safe."

"I'm not liking the sound of this..."

"Relax. You're the girl that shivs clickers, that saved Joel's life, that trekked over two thousand miles across the country trying to find the Fireflies."

"We rode a horse some of the time," Ellie pointed out. "And a truck for a little bit."

"You're missing my point." Matt looked stern. "You shouldn't be afraid of water. You live on a river."

"Who said I'm afraid?" Ellie tossed her head with a high-n-mighty air. "I just don't wanna drown."

"I won't let you drown."

They passed Joel on their way out, riding in with two rabbits and a small fox hung limply over the back of his saddle.

"Slim pickins today," he said, giving Ellie a nod. "You two headed off?"

"Yeah, Matt's going to toss me into the creek tied up in a rope," Ellie explained doggedly. "Sounds fun, huh."

"I'm doing no such thing," he said, draping his arm around her shoulders. "Swimming lessons, right, Ellie?"

"Right." She rolled her eyes.

"Be careful." Joel's gaze lingered on Matt's, and he tightened his grip on Ellie.

"I will. See you later."

"Later." Joel began to turn his mount, his back stiff in the saddle, when Ellie called out.

"Hey, Joel." He turned in the saddle, and regarded her with a slightly kinder expression.

"Puns about swimming are difficult to aqua-er."

Joel snorted and shook his head. "You're a mess," he muttered, but it was around a smile. Ellie grinned after him.

"Alright, let's go. I'm totally doing this."

At the creek, Matt located a good spot, a wide, deep section that ran slowly, surrounded on one side by a small stand of trees close to the water's edge. He knotted the rope around the base of one of the trees and then made another loop at the other end, tossing it aside and sitting on the bank, beginning to peel off his shoes and socks.

Ellie sat down and did the same, scooting to the edge and dipping of foot in. She swore loudly. "This is super freakin' cold."

"You get used to it once you're in there. It'll feel good, since it's so warm today." Matt got to his feet and tossed aside his jacket, wearing just his t-shirt and jeans. His belt joined his jacket and shoes in the pile.

"Alright." He smiled encouragingly. "So, I'm going to jump in and swim around for a minute to make sure it really isn't too cold, and then you should come in too." With a quick nod, Matt plunged down into the creek, submerging his head and rising up again from the water, shaking like a dog.

"Whew! A bit brisk," he called, while Ellie regarded him dubiously from dry ground.

"Is it okay?"

"It's fine. Let me see how deep it is." Taking a deep lungful of air, Matt dove beneath the surface, and a stream of bubbles rose to the top where he had disappeared. Some twenty seconds passed, then thirty. The bubbles stopped, and Ellie felt her heartbeat quicken. A minute. A minute and a half. She started to panic.

Grabbing the rope and fumbling with the thickness of it, Ellie tied it in a firm knot about her waist and splashed down into the creek, gasping at its coldness. "Matt?" she called, her voice high-pitched with fear. "Matt?" The water rose and slapped her in the face, and she choked, her open mouth filling with water. Thrashing her limbs as she felt the rope go taut, Ellie spluttered, "Matt, what the heck –" And then she went under. Blackness and tiny bubbles assailed her eyes and ears, and Ellie felt the toe of her left foot catch on something sharp at the creek's bottom, seeping a thread of dark blood into the rushing water.

A strong grip closed around her waist and lifted her above the surface, and Matt's face was suddenly close to hers.

"Ellie? You alright?"

"Holy mother of –" she coughed, spitting water, and flailing to get away from him. "Let go of me!"

"Alright." He released her and she bobbed beneath the surface again, only to be seized by the scruff of the neck and pulled to the bank. "You're okay. You're okay."

Ellie blinked and wiped the water from her face, glaring at Matt. "What the heck are you doing?"  
"I was getting you to come into the water. It was an idea I had, when I was swimming around down there. I thought, you never conquer your fears when someone else is just telling you what to do, so what if I just stayed down there and let you come in on her own. That way your fears are defeated, and then we can focus on the skill."

"You're insane," Ellie muttered weakly.

"But it worked."

"You scared the crap outta me."

"I'm okay. You're okay, and we're both in the creek new. Want to swim?"

"Fine." Ellie scooted into the shallows, but retained her grip on Matt. "Don't let go of me."

"I won't."

Matt pulled her back into the current, their bodies feeling weightless, the warmth of her small hands on his shoulders noticeable against the chill of the creek water surrounding them.

"Okay, so you've still got the rope around you, so even if something happens, you won't go far. The main thing is to not be scared, and channel your energy into making your arms and legs work together."

"...Channel your energy... Arms and legs work together," Ellie murmured, nodding. "Got it."

"So, keep holding onto me, but kick your feet, nice and strong."

He could see the effort of the movement on her face, but it made no disturbance in the surface of the water.

"Really kick. Kick hard, so you make a splash."

"I'll kick you."

"Keep your arms straight." He grasped her elbows, straightening them, and keeping her at arm's length away from him. "Now kick."

Putting her head down, Ellie gritted her teeth and churned up a series of energetic waves behind her.

"Good!"

"Good?" she panted. "Alright. What next..."

"So while you move your legs, you've also got to move your arms."

"'Kay."

"So I'm gonna have you try on your own for just a minute, and I want you to kick your legs, and also move your arms. Like this." Matt demonstrated, his hands pushing just enough water beneath him to keep him buoyant. "Let go of me now."  
"Alright... one – two –" Ellie pushed herself away from him and slid beneath the surface, but a vigorous kicking from her legs pushed her back up again, spluttering.

"Now move your arms, Ellie! Move your arms!"

"I am!" she managed, pushing her arms through the water, off-balance and awkward. She sank again, thrashing to keep her head above the surface.

"Easy, not so fast," Matt called, and Ellie made a slow even pass through the water, keeping her head and shoulders steady. Her face lit up as the water about her calmed. She did it again.

"Oh my gosh, I'm swimming," she said, sweeping her arms and legs in a circular motion and propelling herself upwards in the water ever so slightly each time she began to sink.

"You're swimming."

"How do I not just stay in the same place?"

"Lean forward in whichever direction you want to go, and keep doing the same thing."

Ellie's chin dipped into the water and she paddled like a dog a few strokes in one direction, then another.

"I'm doing it," she gasped, her limbs beginning to tire. "I'm doing it..."

Matt caught her into a hug, and let her droop in his arms. "See, it wasn't hard. But you're going to need practice."

"No kidding," she breathed, limp against him. "This wears you out!"  
"It's hard work, especially when you're not used to it. You waste a lot of energy at first." Matt towed her over to the side and they both clambered out of the creek, streaming water, and sat, breathless, on the bank. Ellie grinned broadly. "That was awesome." She set to work untying the rope from her waist. "We should totally come back and do this again tomorrow."

Matt's face sobered. "I told my dad I'd help him tomorrow. But maybe the next day."

Ellie shrugged. "No problem. I think I know what I'm doing now."  
"Are you joking?" Matt's eyebrows knit together. "Don't ever go swimming alone. That's an important rule."

"But when I get better –"

"No matter how good of a swimmer you are, you should never go alone," Matt said firmly. "You never know what could happen..." He trailed off, and focused on the diluted blood smearing Ellie's toe. "Are you hurt?"

"Oh." She grabbed her foot and examined it, poking at the ragged bit of skin that had been torn loose. "I cut it on the bottom."

"You should rinse it before you put your socks and shoes back on," Matt advised, chuckling. "You're always tearing up your feet, aren't you."

"Well, they're right down there next to the ground where all the sharp stuff is," Ellie retorted, scooting forward and sticking her foot in the cool water, before laying back on the slope of the bank. "Thanks for helping me."

"You're welcome."

Matt lowered himself to the grass with a small grunt, and put his arms behind his head, looking at the leafy canopy of the forest above them.

"In times like these, I can almost forget what a terrible world we live in," he murmured. "It gives me hope to press on, so one day people can take everything for what it seems, and enjoy it."

Ellie nodded slowly. "Do you think that's ever gonna happen?"

Matt pondered his answer. "It will. I don't know if I'll be alive to see it, but it will."

"Is there anything in the world you think you should do before you die?" Ellie asked suddenly, turning and regarding him with a fixed stare. "I mean, anyone could die any day, but still."

Matt furrowed his brow. "I want to create something that'll endure beyond my lifespan. Like write a book, or inspire others with an ideal."

"I want to have sex," Ellie said in a low voice. Matt's gaze met hers.

"Did you say –"

"Yeah." Ellie gave a nervous laugh. "Tommy and Maria are really hoping I'll get married soon, and even though I don't plan on dying... well, I don't know a freakin' thing about what do to when you're married." She decided now would not be a good time to tell her friend that she'd never – in her life – had the desire to sleep with a guy before.

"Do you believe you have to be married to... you know –" Matt's voice was small.

Ellie shrugged. "I don't see the sense in that, really. In a world like this, most stuff's already gone down the toilet anyway, so I don't think it matters."

"Those are the kinds of things that should be reinstated," Matt murmured.

"What? Rules?"

"No. Higher belief systems. Something more than mere survival."

"So, you're saying you wouldn't screw me, even if you thought it'd help me," Ellie whispered. Matt's eyes darkened with some sort of strange shadow.

"I'd do anything for you, Ellie," he murmured. "I love you."


	13. Chapter 13

The afternoon sun slanted through the grimy window as Ellie sat with her legs crossed upon the bed. Matt took a seat on the edge, shifting the mattress ever so slightly. Readjusting her position, Ellie braced her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands.

"Soo..." she began, but her voice held the slightest of quavers to it. "Do you know what you're doing?"

Matt hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

Ellie's face felt oddly stiff and hot, and she realized with some consternation, that this must be a blush. She looked at the quilt and mumbled, "Well, good, because I'm sure not an expert."

"There's... not a whole lot to worry about," Mat said in a quiet voice. "I mean, I'll do my best not to make it freaky."

"Yeah. That sounds likely," Ellie murmured.

"Hey." Matt reached over and placed a hand on her shoulder, the cloth of her shirt slightly cold with the residual dampness. "You've got such a pessimist's view of this."

"Well, wouldn't you? If this was basically something you're doing because you know you're supposed to, not because you want to?"

Matt blinked, and removed his hand. "I – well... that's saying, you've don't – you've never had a – drive?"

"Drive for what?" Ellie's stared at him.

"Sex."

Ellie shrugged. "I wouldn't call it a drive. It sorta just comes around whenever I don't want it to. At least, if the whole..." she squirmed slightly, "that whole feeling really weird in my belly and kinda hot and like I wish something would fix it. Or that –" she wrinkled her nose, " _desire_  to like, totally have someone, and make them amazingly happy and make them that way because of _you_." She heaved a sigh. "That made, like, no sense."

"It made sense," Matt said at length. "That's just what it's like."

"So, there's nothing wrong with me?"

Matt met her eyes. "There's nothing wrong with you. Or if there is, it's wrong with me too."

Ellie repressed a grin. "That was totally cheesy."  
Matt glared. "Hey. I meant it."

"I know, but it was cheesy," she giggled.

"You making fun of me?"

"Oh, yeah!"

He gave her a push and she toppled backwards on the bed, feet splayed out in the air. He crawled across the space between them and poked Ellie in an exposed armpit. She recoiled with a squeak.

"Did that tickle?"

"Not telling," she growled, locking her arms over her chest, but Matt had her. He poked her in the thigh, in the ribs, the stomach, and before she knew it, Ellie was doing her very best to curl up into the smallest ball possible and catch her breath.

"Stop –" she gasped. "Stop it..."

Matt obediently folded his hands and watched in amusement as Ellie's breathing gradually evened. She flopped back on the bed with a huge sigh, and Matt flopped down by her side, and to his delight, she curled up against him. Matt resisted the urge to grin like a gargoyle, and no sooner had he repressed the joy rising in his chest than he began to worry about the other issues arising from Ellie's innocent nearness. He had been battling these thoughts all day long, ever since he'd met Ellie, really. Sometimes he disgusted himself. But he swallowed, and lifted a hand, stroking it down her soft brown hair, still slightly damp. Her breath caught audibly.

"Matt."

"Hm?"

"What're you doing?"

He let his hand fall back to the bed. "Nothing. Sorry."

There was a long pause. "It's okay. You can do it again if you want."

Matt turned so that he was propped up on one elbow, looking the girl in the face. "Ellie," he murmured. "I really like you..."

He was so near her that Ellie could feel his breath on her face, and somehow she tensed, trying to tell herself it was not unpleasant, there was nothing wrong with it. She forced herself to take in a deep breath, inhaling the air from his lungs, and letting it fill her and relax her.  _Okay._

"I really like you too, you're cool," she replied, meeting his eyes. "You're not boring at all, or weird, or stupid. You're pretty awesome, actually."

Matt smiled, showing his teeth. "Not boring, or weird or stupid. Well, that's good."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "You know," she said, her voice low. "I like hanging out with you."

"I like hanging out with you. You're... amazing, frankly. You amaze me."

"I don't know what to do when you do that," Ellie muttered, looking at the quilt.

"Just be quiet, then. I've never met a girl like you. I've met strong girls, I've met pretty girls, and I even met a few scary ones." Matt chuckled. "In our town back in Oklahoma there was a girl that could shoot better than my dad. But she was... hard to talk to. She was killed in the tornado. One of the girls – Becky," he shook his head. "I think you've met her. She's really pretty, but she's not... she can't take care of herself. And it's nice to look after a girl, but not to be  _forced_  to, if you know what I mean."

Ellie was listening silently.

"But I really like you, and how you can be as brave as a soldier, and still as nice as a sister. That you've been through hell and back, and you still love to nerd out over comics. That you can shoot, but you also can cry. And I've seen you cry," he said gently, "and it broke my heart."

"You weren't supposed to have gotten that out of me," Ellie said in a low voice. "It was nothing, just me being stupid."

"Anyway." Matt looked back at Ellie's face again. "I think the world of you."

Ellie felt a pang in her chest, an actual twinge of pain that made her put a hand to her breast in a move that made her feel like something out of Pride and Prejudice. She snatched her hand away as soon as she realized what she'd done and stammered, "I really like you. You're great, you're not... weird or boring..."

Matt's eyes were focused on her face, roving her features, taking in every scratch, every freckle.

"I want you to feel comfortable with me," he said.

"I do. I completely trusted you. With my life. I just... I'm not in love with you."

Matt took a deep breath, and then put it to her: "How do you know?"

Ellie shrugged. "I don't. I just don't think so. But I really like you. And... I don't mind having to do this too much because you're cool with it, and it rubs off." She nodded. "I can relax because you're relaxed."

"Can I kiss you?" Matt asked in a husky voice. And Ellie nodded.

He leaned in and their lips connected, with just enough magnetism that when he lifted his chin, it guided them into deeper contact. When Ellie had kissed Riley it had been quick – a brief connection of the sensitive, fleshy part of a person that seemed meant to be touched by another. It was a whim, an urge she hadn't denied, and she had thought about the feeling, the rush for weeks afterward. In her mind, she had imagined kissing someone again, unconsciously, of course, and it had made her feel a maddening mixture of pleasure and betrayal. Pleasure because this person she wanted to kiss was so... beautiful. Betrayal because in her mind she could see Riley's round chocolate eyes regarding her with that steady look they had held the moment Ellie had drawn back from the kiss; assurance, and something near to what she hoped was love.

In this moment, she tried to forget both her memories and her fantasies, and focus on Matt, and that he was here. His warmth pervaded the area, and she could feel the soft flutter of the breath out his nostrils against her cheek. It was not unpleasant, to be sure, but she could not shake the feelings of guilt as she did it. Matt broke the kiss very gently, his breathing seeming loud.

"Are you alright?" he whispered, and Ellie nodded, drawing the back of her hand over her mouth without realizing what she did.

"Yeah. Alright." She squirmed, the feeling of heat and strangeness deep within her beginning to play traitor to her well-thought presuppositions. "I – can I touch you?"

"We can do whatever we want," Matt replied, and Ellie nodded, reaching out a hand and lightly brushing it over Matt's dark hair. A thick wave gave under her fingers, and she did it again, seeing Matt's eyes drift closed at her touch. His hand crept around her waist, and she felt herself tense, but did her best to ignore it and continued playing with his hair, her face a mask of concentrated curiosity.

"Take your hair down," Matt murmured at last, and Ellie obeyed silently, pulling the hairtie from her ponytail and feeling the soft strands of her fine hair fall against her cheeks, resting against the back of her neck. Matt shifted upwards on the bed and tightened his hold on her, pressing a hot kiss to her forehead, and Ellie let out a breath, feeling the tingling of her body intensify as the bed pressed into her back. The room suddenly seemed far too warm. Matt looked down on her with infinite kindness ill-concealing desire, and Ellie raised a hand to trace the line of his jaw. It was firm, and hard, not like the jaw she imagined touching, which was soft, and curving... The slight prickle of his whiskers scratched her hand and made a quiet noise in the room as Ellie lifted her head to kiss him on the mouth again, an act which he seemed to find immensely pleasing.

Ellie's head spun, and she was aware of noisy breathing, but hardly realized the breaths were her own. Matt fumbled with their clothing, and she felt his skin against hers, burning as if with a fever. Her eyes were pressed shut, and she could feel every inch of him, inches she both wanted to feel and didn't.

"Are you alright?" Matt asked again, his voice strange, and she nodded. So he began.

 


	14. Chapter 14

Joel knocked on the door to Ellie's room late the next morning. The sun was high in the sky, and Ellie was not generally in the habit of oversleeping. Matt had left as night was falling, and apparently his and Ellie's absence for the evening was not made much of by anyone else. They had been simply hanging out together after the swimming escapade. Tommy and Maria, even Joel, were starting to be glad to see that she was able to lighten up a bit and find a friend in Matt, if nothing more. This time could not have been any different.

"Ellie –" Joel lifted his voice and rapped again. "Are you up?"

"You can come in," her voice replied, and Joel opened the door to see her sitting, fully dressed in the clothes she wore yesterday, crosslegged upon the rumpled bed.

"You feelin' okay? It's ten o'clock, kiddo."

"I'm fine." Her voice was small. Joel eased the door shut behind him, and Ellie heaved a sigh, pushing her hair back from her face. "I guess I should get dressed."

"You look dressed to me."

"Something clean. I wore this in the creek yesterday, it's going to need washing soon."

Joel chuckled. "Listen to you. Wore the same t-shirt and jeans for a couple 'a months, and now you 'n Maria do laundry every week." He crossed the room and peered out the window. "Sleep alright?" he asked.

Ellie shrugged. "I didn't really sleep."

Joel shook his head before turning, and making as if to go.

"Joel –" Ellie's voice had a catch to it that made the man pause.

"Ellie?" He turned back around to see her looking at her lap, her arms wrapped around herself. He sat on the edge of the bed. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah. Great," she murmured. "I just..." The girl propped one leg up and hid her face in her arm. "I'm gonna have to talk to Matt later and now it's all weird."

Joel's heart had dropped at her words, and suddenly his mind was in a whirl, making too much of her words, or too little, and just hoping, for some reason, that he had misunderstood her.

"What do you mean?" Joel asked, after a false beginning that ended in a cough. "He's a fine young man. He'll be around for work today, and you all can chat and do all the stuff you usually do... Maybe swim some more." He was rambling, and Ellie's eyes were fixed on him as he forced himself to a halt.

"He, ah... we – yesterday he and I –" Ellie stammered, her face a bright color. "He was here, and we'd talked about it, and he said he liked me and everything, and I decided to be cool with it, so he – we..." she broke off, her eyes full. "We did the... thing."

Joel hoped his face didn't reflect his thoughts. She was sitting here before him, a little girl –  _a young woman_ – and telling him this. That tall young man, that dark-haired Matt from Oklahoma, Ellie's only real friend and newest confidante, had –  _Betrayal_  was the word bouncing around in his mind, but Joel knew it wasn't like that. It couldn't have been. Ellie was a strong girl, and wasn't going to do something unless she'd set her mind to it. It was the sheer fact that she must have set her mind to it that baffled him.

"I see," Joel managed, nearly voicelessly. He nodded stupidly, not knowing what else to do, or say, until he lifted his eyes to see Ellie silently swiping at her damp cheeks. And he simply drew her in to a hug and let her cry into his shoulder. At last Ellie snuffled up the last of her tears and forced a laugh.

"I don't know why I'm crying."

Joel took a deep breath. "You sure you're okay with this?"

Ellie's head drooped. "I just – it just sorta happened, and it wasn't that bad, but the whole time, I was thinking –" Her head drooped still lower, her voice almost inaudible. "I don't know. But it was kinda hard."

"Do you love him?" Joel asked her very gently.

Without hesitation Ellie shook her head. "And it's nothing against him," she hurried, "because he's awesome, but it's just – I don't think that's love. We're just friends..."

"Doesn't sound like he thinks that way."

"I don't know what he thinks. He just said he liked me – that he loved me."

"Ellie –" Joel said, scratching his beard. "You're a smart girl, and you know what you want."

"No, I don't," she murmured. "Or I think I do, but I'm scared to, like, really let myself want it."

"What I mean is, you don't go head over heels when a guy says he likes you. Somebody can like you but that don't mean you have to like them back."

"I do like him," Ellie said. "Just not – like that."

Joel shifted on the bed. "What is it you're scared to want?"

Ellie hesitated for a long moment. "Love," she replied at last.

Joel took a deep breath. "I think everybody wants that, Ellie."

"I mean real love."

"What does real love mean?" Joel bent to retie his boot. "-To you?" he added, straightening up.

"Something I can't have," Ellie replied quickly. "I mean, that's really it. The one thing I've always wanted, but can't seem to find. I mean, there's other people I like," she sighed, "but I feel like there's something I should hold back all the time... because I know that I kinda want to find a person that I don't have to hold back, and have them to be the only one. And... I think that's real love." The girl squinted. "And that doesn't make sense at all, but a lot of stuff doesn't make sense and that doesn't make it any less true."

Joel chuckled, and odd sound in the quiet of the room. "You're right."

Ellie looked up at him. "I guess."

He put a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Do you want me to go find Maria and –"

"It's fine," Ellie said quickly. "It's okay. I actually think I'm going to hang out with Anna."

"Anna?" Joel scratched his beard. "That the girl that comes over here sometimes?"

"Yeah, really long hair," Ellie gestured. "She's really cool."

Joel inhaled deeply, standing up. "If you need anything, or want to talk, you tell me. I'll be in the generator room with Tommy, but I ain't stayin' if you need me here."

"It's cool." Ellie bobbed her head. "I just wanna see Anna."

"Okay." Joel stood to his feet, and reached over, ruffling Ellie's hair. He opened his mouth, the urge to say something strong, but felt the distinct lack of what to say even stronger. So he left the room.

As soon as Joel shut the door behind him, Ellie jumped to her feet, only to hiss in pain and limp over to the closet, pulling out the small stack of folded clothes and tossing a pair of jeans and a buttoned flannel shirt onto the bed. After a brief hunt, she found the boy's undershirt that she wore next to her skin in place of the ragged bra that chafed, and proceeded to strip off the clothing she'd both swam and slept in. Shirtless, Ellie picked her way across the floor to the small bathroom, and eyed herself before the mirror, her skin pale and blotched with faded bruises and the assorted scars she'd managed to acquire. Her face looked the same as always, her eyes large and marked beneath with dark smudges, freckles ornamenting her nose and cheeks. Her frame was thin, her shoulders bony, her breasts small. She snorted to herself, remembering the day when that used to concern her. She hadn't had time to think about that in so long.

Anna was far from robust, but she was much less thin and boyish. Her flesh was sun-kissed and soft, and Ellie felt comfort in her hugs from the slight amount of give her fuller form provided. Hugging anyone else never gave that comfort, not even Maria. Joel was pure muscle, and his strength protected her, but she felt the urge to give that same sense of strength and protection to someone else when she embraced them. Matt had been kind, gentle, even, while holding her close to him. His skin had been slick with sweat, his muscles hard somewhere beneath.

Ellie yanked the tank top over her head, and then the flannel, stepping gingerly from her jeans. Ellie had experienced minor alarm when she bled, but Matt assured her that it would be alright, and soaked up her tears with his kisses. She had not cried out, but simply let the water weep down her cheeks. Even now her underpants were slightly stiff, and Ellie grimaced as she pulled on her clean pair and tenderly stepped into her jeans. Gradually, the soreness in her muscles was working itself out, but she still felt the pain between her legs, and gritted her teeth against it as she ran down the stairs, yanked on her shoes, and hurried outside.

"Anna!" she shouted, seeing the girl crossing the compound, her coat a dark splotch of color against the patched metal of the compound wall.

Anna turned, and beamed at Ellie. "Hi!" she called, waving, and joining Ellie in closing the gap between them. Ellie hugged Anna with all her might and main, feeling her small muscles swell beneath her skin and heard Anna make a funny noise near her ear.

"Ellie, you're suffocating me!" she choked, breaking away and gasping for breath. "What's going on?"

"I missed you," Ellie murmured. "It's been forever."

"Only a few days," Anna chuckled. "I've just been busy."

"Well, could you not be? It's miserable by myself."

"What about Matt?" Anna cocked her head. "I thought he promised not to let you get lonely. Didn't he come over and hang out?"

"Yeah," Ellie said, her voice off-handed. "Last evening. It was okay. But it's more fun with you there. He gets..." She cursed under her breath. "He gets weird when it's just the two of us."

Anna stopped, and gripped Ellie's hands, the gesture sending a thrill up Ellie's arms. Her eyes were earnest.

"Ellie, you know he likes you, right?" There was a small line between Anna's brows. "I mean, he really likes you. Anyone could see it."

"Yeah, he told me," Ellie murmured. "And it's super weird. I mean, I like the  _three_ of us being friends. What about you, and all? We can't just leave you out?"

"I don't feel left out," Anna replied. "I just have to realize you two like each other."

"But I don't like him," Ellie said, pulling on Anna's arms, before releasing her hands. The cool wind evaporated the sweat there. "I just want to be friends."

"Ellie..." Anna began, brushing her hair over her shoulder. "Don't do that on my account. It's okay."

"I – don't – freakin' – like him," Ellie growled. "Get it?"

Anna stared at her. "Alright. If you say so. Just know that he thinks the world of you. Major crush. I've seen it."

Ellie groaned quietly. "Just shut up, alright. I wanted to hang out with you and do cool stuff. Not talk about stupid boys."

Anna's face displayed exaggerated shock. "Wait until Matt hears you called him stupid." She grinned. "Where is he? Do you wanna find him?"

"No," Ellie replied quickly. "No, I just thought, uh... we could have girl time. Heck, you know, talk about comics, ride horses, gather kindling, and stuff. Girl stuff."

Anna elbowed her. "You're so weird."

"I learn from the best," Ellie retorted.

Anna draped her arm around Ellie's shoulder, and they both sighed happily, strutting around the compound a few times, before going to the stables, and checking on the horses. Only one horse was in its stall, the others having been taken out by the men from the Oklahoma group who were assigned hunting duty for the next few days.

Ellie cursed again. "Now what're we going to do?" she complained. "Freakin' horses aren't even here."

"Ever heard of riding double?" Anna said sarcastically. "It's not as if we weigh too much."

"Awesome!" Ellie exclaimed. "I get the front."

"But I'm taller," Anna retorted.

"Great, then you can see over me."

"That's not fair, you're not that much shorter," Anna began.

"And you're not that much taller," interrupted Ellie. They stared at each other for a minute before bursting out laughing, and Ellie managed, "Alright, you get the front. But only because your big butt won't fit behind the saddle."

"I do not have a big butt!" Anna squeaked. "Just because you have  _no_ butt doesn't mean you should make fun of mine!"

"You're so darn sensitive," Ellie grumbled. "Just get over it."

Anna threw a handful of hay at her and promptly sneezed. "Get the saddle, Ellie."


	15. Chapter 15

Ellie did a good job of avoiding Matt for the next several weeks. Somehow, it had just become too awkward, and she argued with herself whether she was making a bigger deal of this than she ought, or whether she was doing the right thing.

"I'm starting to feel like that girl in that stupid diary," she mumbled to herself one morning, lying in bed, feeling a lack of interest in everything, even moving. "I need to go and shoot something with Joel. Or talk with Anna." With that thought in her head, she launched up and got dressed.

The sun was shining brightly but there was a nip in the air, a reminder that winter was never far away in Wyoming, and Ellie zipped her jacket up to her chin, her quiver slung over her back, bow in hand.

"Morning, Buckley," she said, scratching the hound behind the ears and letting his lazy tongue lick her face. "So much slobber," she complained with a quiet laugh, wiping her face on her sleeve. "What's your deal?"

With a final pat, Ellie straightened, and walked on, feeling like grinning for the first time in a long while, and she even went so far as to nod at the few that she sighted on their way home after the night shift on the walls. Making her way through the gate, across the dam, and down the rise into the woods, Ellie inhaled the fresh air around her and felt the heaviness in her limbs slowly begin to dispel.

The pinch behind her stomach made her regret her decision to forgo breakfast, but Ellie ignored it as she took up her post in a good stand of trees, determined to bring something good home for lunch. They'd been subsisting on canned food and MRE's brought by the Oklahomans for some time now, and she was famished for real meat. Even in the warm weather, there was hardly any game about.

"Not like a deer's gonna wander by here," Ellie murmured to herself, just as a rustling was heard in the branches to her right. She tensed, and notched an arrow, her eyes quickly scanning the underbrush. She waited a long moment, her eye narrowed, until, with a noisy scuffling sound, a pair of skunks burst through, untangling themselves and ambling aimlessly across the clearing.

Ellie cursed under her breath, and eased her bowstring back down, glaring at the striped creatures as they disappeared into the scrub once again.

"Yeah, yeah..." she muttered. "Not going to shoot you, stinky things. Made that mistake once and I'm  _never_  doing that again."

"Never doing what again?"

Gasping, Ellie spun and trained her arrow on the figure standing behind her, who slowly lifted his hands.

"I come in peace?" he said, raising his eyebrows, and Ellie rolled her eyes.

"What kind of moron sneaks up on someone when they're hunting!"

"I didn't sneak!" Matt exclaimed, his eyes wide. "I just wanted to talk to you. It's.. been a while." He shuffled his feet, and shrugged. "And, well, you were talking to the skunks, and I heard your voice, so I came on over."

"There's no way you heard that," Ellie grumbled, climbing from her spot hidden in the bushes and slinging her bow over her back, realizing that she wasn't going to bring home anything good today unless it be her friend the bookworm, and she didn't feel like joking about cannibalism quite yet, to be honest.

"That's better." Matt let out an audible breath. "For someone so small, you sure know how to intimidate something much bigger than you."

"What are you doing out here?" Ellie's voice was low. "There could be bandits. Or infected."

"I was reading. There's a good spot close to the creek."

Ellie blinked.  _Reading_. "Reading what?"

"Fenelon." Matt shrugged. "It's good to go back over the parts I've skimmed in the past. I always learn something new. It's like catching up with an old friend." His eyes shone, and the girl looked at the ground. "I've missed you, Ellie. How are you?" It seemed an innocent question, but suddenly laden with more.  _Since..._

Ellie met his eyes at last. "Fine. You?"

"Fine. Though needing my repayment for teaching you to swim."

"Oh! That." Ellie cracked a small smile. "I seriously just forgot."

"Have some time now?"

"I guess. We'd better head back."

They returned to the settlement in silence: a silence which neither could decide was awkward or companionable. Matt waited for her on the porch of Tommy and Maria's house, and took a seat when she returned. Squinting, Ellie descended to the steps beside him, turning her head this way and that, examining the angle of Matt's face. He strove to hide his smile.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out where to cut first."

"Don't make it real short. I don't want to look like a gladiator."

"What's that?" Ellie was beginning to sound like herself again. She wrinkled her nose. "Sounds like a big machine that's supposed to make people happy. You know – glad."

Matt laughed outright. "You're so weird."

"Well, what is it?"

"A gladiator's a trained fighter. They used to have big staged battles in Ancient Rome in this arena, and the fighters were called gladiators. They fought to the death. The last one standing went home with fame and glory and the privilege of knowing he'd killed everyone else in order to have his own life spared by the crown." Matt's face was sober. "It was a brutal age."

Ellie exhaled. "No kidding. Did this have a point?"

Matt shook his head. "Entertainment."

"That sucks," Ellie said. "No, we don't want you to look like a gladiator."

Matt's hair was thick and lay in errant waves around his ears and down the back of his neck. His entire forehead was obscured by his overgrown forelock, and Ellie started there, picking a piece, and trimming it with the shears. Slowly, a view of Matt's eyebrows could be seen, but not much more, and then she began to reveal his ears, and finally, the back of his neck.

Coming back around to the front, Ellie tussled his hair, the act sending a sensation through the young man to the very tips of his toes, and examined the locks again.

"Your eyes are so big when you're concentrating," Matt murmured with a smile, and Ellie simply blinked, and continued to examine him, reaching up and snipping a final piece of hair. She was so close that she could smell his scent; he smelled of engine oil and the outdoors, and she turned away.

"You're done."

"Great."Matt stood, a bit stiffly, and brushed the stray bits of hair from his shirt and jeans. "Brush off the back?" he asked, coming down a step and turning as Ellie mounted the stairs behind him and spanked his shoulders off more vigorously than was probably necessary.

"Easy," he breathed, turning, and meeting her eyes. "Everything alright?"

Ellie nodded, her shoulders drooping. "I've been thinking a lot. Too much, probably."

Matt inhaled slowly. "I understand."

"It sucks to grow up and have to start thinking about things." She pushed her bangs out of her eyes and bent, setting the shears down on the porch. "I shouldn't hold sharp things when I'm mad," she said in a flat tone.

"Come here," Matt murmured, and for some strange reason, she did so, as he enfolded her in a hug. Ellie's cheek pressed against his chest, feeling the toned muscles there, and the gentle strain of the sinews in his arm against her back. At first it was comforting, but the increasing pressure made her fight the urge to squirm.

He released her at last. "Sit." He patted the top step, and she brushed the hair clippings aside, taking a seat beside him as he pulled at tiny book from his pocket. "Fenelon?"

She shrugged.

"This is something I'm constantly reminding myself," Matt murmured, opening the worn binding. "'Do not trust to your good intentions if they are barren and without result. Labor bravely to become gentle and humble of heart. If something is done amiss which only affects you personally, and what is due to yourself, hear it without saying anything.'" He nodded to himself, as if enjoying the absorption of his self-administered proverbs. "'If any hasty word has escaped you, after inward humiliation for it, make amends by speaking kindly, and doing some little act of kindness, if possible, to those whom you have treated rudely. Never forget how God has dealt –'"

Matt stopped short as Ellie got up and dashed within the house, shutting the door behind her.

 


	16. Chapter 16

"Ellie?" Joel called, as the girl rushed past him, her hoodie a multi-colored blur. "Ellie?"

"I'm fine!" she called in a strange voice, thundering up the stairs, and shutting the door. Joel stood from where he had been kneeling on the floor, examining a pair of sights he had removed from the barrel of Tommy's rifle, and took a deep breath, going to the bottom of the staircase and pausing. Footsteps thudded across the floor, then he heard the hollow reverberation of her guitar being bumped. A sentence full of swearing, and an angry discordant sweep of the strings.

"Ellie?"

"What!"

"Can I come up?"

"I dunno, your legs working?" she called back, and Joel chuckled in spite of himself, mounting the stairs. Her door was open.

"What's goin' on?"

"Nothing." She shrugged.

"Your face looks like a thundercloud."

"Your face looks like a grizzly bear."

"Hey." He crossed his arms. " _What_  is goin' on?"

"I said nothing, I just can't get this stupid F chord."

Ellie twisted her mouth sideways and contorted her fingers over the frets, her knuckles white as she gripped the neck of the instrument, and strummed a haphazard combination of notes. Cursing again, she strummed it harder.

"It won't work." She looked up, her face pale.

Joel knew the guitar was not the problem, but he was familiar enough with the feeling of venting somehow to let her be.

"Here, lemme see what you're doin'." Joel sat on the chair and hitched it up closer, meeting her eyes. "Make sure that you get this one out of the way, so your pinky can reach clear to here. Lean 'em a little this way. Now try it again."

Ellie allowed her fingers to be manipulated over the strings, and a wavering, but generally-F- chord filled the room.

"Cool," she murmured. "I've been needing this one for forever."

"Better?"

"Lots," she said, plucking the strings one by one, and adjusting her fingers, her tongue making a bump in her cheek as she concentrated. Joel opened his mouth to begin to say something, when he heard a knock on the door downstairs, and then a hesitant:

"Hello?"

"Anna!" Ellie jumped to her feet, thrusting the guitar at Joel, but suddenly stumbled, losing her balance and lurching into the doorframe. The palms of her hands hit the wood with a dull thud, and she cursed.

"Careful, grace," Joel scolded, twisting around in his chair.

"Holy moly," she breathed. "My head felt weird there for a minute."

"Sit down," Joel said. "Did you eat somethin' today?"

"No," Ellie said hurriedly, recovering and clattering down the stairs. He heard the sound of the door open, and hurried excited voices, and descended the stairs slowly.

The girls stood just in the doorway, and Ellie had her hands jammed into the pockets of her hoodie, rocking forward and backward on her feet in excitement as her friend talked.

"Hi, Joel," Anna said, breaking off, and giving him a grin. "How're you?"

"Fine, fine," he said a bit gruffly, bending, and picking up his project from the floor. "Just fixin' to reattach those sights."

Anna nodded, and said, "Mind if I steal Ellie?"

"Long as you bring her back," Joel said, and Ellie waved a hand.

"He doesn't care that much. Keep me as long as you like."

"Matt said you ran off all upset, and probably needed cheering up," Anna began, and Ellie sobered a little. Joel did his best to feel like he was not eavesdropping, but it wasn't exactly working.

"Yeah?" Her voice was cheerful – falsely so. "Well, I'm better now, I just remembered something I wanted to do and didn't want to, you know, like forget."

"What did he do to his hair, do you know?"

"I cut it for him," Ellie deadpanned, and Anna covered her mouth in a snicker.

"What!" Ellie glared. "Does it look dumb?"

"Come on," Anna said simply, dragging Ellie out the door. Matt was across the courtyard, lending a hand to Tommy, his father, and Earl in pitching new hay into the stables – the hay being long grasses that grew on the western-side of the river, in a meadow – and waved when he sighted the two. Gestures explained his request for absence, and momentarily he jogged toward them.

"Ellie – I'm really sorry," he began, his eyes earnest. "Did I upset you somehow?"

"It's nothing, I just – forgot something I needed to grab," Ellie said. "Anna came and got me."

"Yeah, we've missed you! So." Anna looked back and fourth between the two, eyes alight. "Let's do something crazy."

"I don't know what to do," Ellie complained, shrugging, and sticking her hands back into her pockets. "I was enjoying a nice quiet day of –"

"What?"

"Cutting Matt's hair and playing my guitar."

"Okay, well, you can't cut his hair anymore or else he won't have any left –"

"-Hey!"

"It's true!" Anna protested. "He looks like a gladiator!"

"Seriously?" Ellie groaned. "Did everybody in the world know what that was  _except_  me?"

"Go get your guitar, Ellie. Matt, what were you doing – aside from shoveling the barns?"

"I was going to write..." he admitted.

"What?"

"It's a secret."

"You totally were going to write a sequel to Savage Starlight, you said you loved it," Ellie began, her lips pursed.

"True, but not that much."

"It's good!"

"Ellie, get your guitar, Matt, find your notebook and meet me back here. We are going to do something amazing," Anna ordered in a dramatic voice. Ellie watched her eagerly, like a dog watches his master.

"What are we going to do?"

"I'll tell you when I'm done finding my part! I'm looking for some crates, meet me back here as soon as you can!"

Laughing confusedly, the three split up, and Ellie hurried into the house, almost falling up the stairs in an attempt to hurry.

Something about Anna. Whatever it was, it made Ellie's heart stop whenever she was in the room with her. Whenever she talked, Ellie listened. Wherever she went, Ellie wanted to follow. Her glances were like drops of cool sweet rain and her smiles pure gold. Ellie's heart felt warmed that her existence was even acknowledged by such an amazing creature.

Barging back into the sunlight, Ellie's feet hit the ground in an uneven pattern as she loped up to where Anna was dragging crates and other debris from where it lay against the outside of the houses into a ramshackle pile.

"What the  _heck_  are you doing?" Ellie laughed. "Tommy's going to kill you, we just got all that crap cleaned up."

Anna stood back, and surveyed her work, hands on her hips, a lock of dark hair falling into her eyes. She blew it away with a strategic puff of her breath.

"What does it look like to you?"

"A pile of junk," Ellie replied, shrugging.

Anna grabbed her by the shoulders and shook the girl until she laughed, saying, "Use your imagination, you idiot!"

"Okay, okay!" Ellie gasped, pulling herself free, and squinting at the mess. "A... spaceship. That's the cockpit, and those are the wings." She bounded forward enthusiastically, and tugged a few boards into place. "And this – this is the teleportation device!"

Anna beamed. "Let's  _do_  Savage Starlight."

Matt's voice interrupted. " _Do_  Savage Starlight?"

"Yes." Anna's was determined. "Ellie, give us an intro. Matt, you write what to say, and I'll say it, I swear. And I'll say it –" she took an unsteady step up onto a crate, "-epicly!" She spread her arms and struck a pose. Ellie laughed out loud.

"You're such a dork. Let's do this."

Matt grinned appreciatively, and whispered, "Do you think she's insane?"

"Yeah, but I don't care, I love her," Ellie replied hurriedly, grunting as she sat on the ground and pulled her guitar into position. She strummed an off-key chord, and then drummed on the side of the wood dramatically.

"Endure and survive – that was their mandate," Matt began in a deep, ominous voice, scribbling furiously in his notebook. "But endurance... was a matter of wit – and survival... a matter of time."

A few passersby in the compound cast strange glances at the teenagers, but no one said a word, and they resumed their business with an eye on the commotion from afar.

Ellie plucked a few single notes in a quick succession and polished them off with a quick chord as Anna settled herself in her craft, brow lowered, jaw set. Ellie began to do her best to pick a furious flying-at-the-speed-of-light kind of song on her guitar, but she had the feeling that it was sounding more like a crow pulling on the wires of a dismembered robot... the image was vivid in her head, and she squinted, focusing on the frets and sliding her fingers up and down, emitting robot-like noises, or what she imagined robot-like noises sounded like...

"Ellie!" Matt nudged her with the toe of his boot. "Hello? Background music?"

"Hm? Oh!" Ellie looked up to see Anna doing her best to fight an imaginary Traveler, and she twanged a succession of notes on the same string.

"For crying out loud, Ellie, get in the mood!" Anna exclaimed, jumping down from the crate fort, and taking the guitar from her.

"Watch it!" Ellie yelped. "Be nice to it!"

"Let's switch. You be Daniella, and I'll play the music –"

"What if I want to play the music?" Matt's eyebrows lifted. "I used to know a song or two on guitar."

"Okay then," Anna passed the instrument to the writer and taking his notebook in hand. "And I'll do the narrating." She squinted at the paper, bringing it close to her face. "How can you even read this?"

"It's shorthand," Matt said quickly, taking it back and flipping to blank page. "It's like a code. There you go." He passed the notebook back and a strange look passed between the two. Anna took a deep breath.

"Okay, Ellie, you're facing a band of one hundred Travelers – singlehandedly." She dropped her voice to add to the melodrama, and began to scribble on the paper.

"I got this," Ellie muttered, a determined look on her face as she mounted the pile of rubble, and scrambled to the top.

"Listen, you Traveler –" Ellie began to shout her opinions of the evil alien race with every colorful word she knew when she felt the world shift beneath her – not just the pile of debris – and her vision wavered. She blinked rapidly, and felt her legs sway, her friends' voices calling out from behind a buzzing in her ears.

"Ellie? Ellie, are you okay?" Anna said loudly, the grip on her arm almost painful as she escorted her down from the junk heap. "Ellie?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she mumbled, "just almost... it's like everything went all fuzzy and blackish for a second."

"Just... take it easy," Matt said, grabbing her around the waist and helping her to the steps of Tommy and Maria's house. "How do you feel?"

"Great," Ellie breathed, as she passed clean out.


End file.
